by Evan Stambaugh
A consulting firm co-owned by the husband of Rep. Ilhan Omar is “back in business,” a new report says.
According to Federal Election Commission paperwork, E Street Group received $15,000 from the Minnesota DFL Party’s federal committee on Feb. 25, just two days after Rep. Omar’s campaign paid the DFL committee the same amount on Feb. 23.
The story was initially reported by Fox News.
E Street Group is co-owned by Tim Mynett, Omar’s husband, and was said to have pivoted away from federal politics following previous controversy, according to Fox News.
In Nov. 2020, Omar announced she would cut ties with E Street Group, writing in an email to supporters that she wanted to ensure “anybody who is supporting our campaign with their time or financial support feels there is no perceived issue with that support.”
Leading up to that email, it was revealed E Street Group received more than $600,000 in COVID relief funds and over $1 million from Omar’s campaign that year. $500,000 of the relief funds were Economic Injury Disaster Loans, while another $134,800 came from the Paycheck Protection Program.
As for the cash from Omar’s campaign, E Street Group had received $2.78 million since July 2019, with $1.1 million of that coming between July and Sept. 2020 alone for various advertising, video production and editing, digital consulting, and travel expenses.
Omar’s campaign money amounted to approximately 80% of the cashflow at her husband’s consulting firm during the 2020 election season, Alpha News reported last February.
“E Street Group is a well-known and widely respected political consulting and advertising firm that has worked with political parties and candidates throughout the country and here in Minnesota,” Ken Martin, chair of the Minnesota DFL, told Fox News.
Also last February, two Republican congressmen from Wisconsin introduced a bill in the U.S. House called the “OMAR Act” in response to the previous year’s controversy. The bill aimed to prevent political candidates from “enriching their spouses” with campaign money.
“For too long, lawmakers of both political parties have engaged in the ethically dubious practice of pocketing campaign funds by ‘hiring’ their spouses and laundering the money as campaign related expenses,” said Rep. Tom Tiffany at the time.
The bill, HR 856, has not made any progress in the House since its introduction in February 2021.
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Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
Photo “Rep Ilhan Omar with Tim Mynett” by CAIR Los Angeles.
