An Investigation Into Ilhan Omar's Sudden Fortune and Foreign Dealings Was Opened -- Under the Biden Administration

And when the Corruption Hawks of the Biden Administration think that you're grifting money from foreign interests, you're shadier than a $400,000 Hunter Biden "watercolor."

The Justice Department under the Biden administration opened an investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, in 2024 to scrutinize her finances, campaign spending and interactions with a foreign citizen, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

The inquiry, initiated by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington and the department's public integrity unit in June of that year, appears to have stalled for lack of evidence, according to one of the people who requested anonymity to discuss internal department matters.

Uh-huh.

The investigation appeared to be thrust into the public spotlight on Monday, when President Trump blindsided department officials by posting about it on Truth Social, singling out Ms. Omar. It was part of a rambling statement announcing a shake-up of the team overseeing immigration raids in Ms. Omar's Minneapolis district that misspelled her name.

"The DOJ and Congress are looking at 'Congresswoman' Illhan Omar, who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars," he wrote. "Time will tell all."

It was not clear whether Mr. Trump was referring to another investigation altogether or how he arrived at the $44 million figure.

Ms. Omar, a Somali-born refugee who emigrated to the United States when she was 12, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

"Sorry, Trump, your support is collapsing and you're panicking," she wrote on social media on Monday. "Right on cue, you're deflecting from your failures with lies and conspiracy theories about me. Years of 'investigations' have found nothing."

...

Ugly personal attacks against Ms. Omar have been a staple of Mr. Trump's speeches since her election to Congress in 2018, when she and Representative Rashida Tlaib, Democrat of Michigan, made history as the first two Muslim women elected to Congress.

Ms. Omar's sharp criticism of Israel, her repetition of antisemitic tropes and her comparison of U.S. actions to those of Hamas have elicited bipartisan criticism.

But few people have demonized her more than Mr. Trump, who has veered into racist and xenophobic vitriol, in the view of Ms. Omar and other critics of the president.

...

In recent weeks, House Republicans have threatened to open their own investigation into Ms. Omar, an apparent effort to tie her to the Minnesota fraud scandal that has revealed evidence that some members of the Somali community set up companies that billed state agencies for social services that were never provided.

Representative James R. Comer of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has vowed to subpoena Ms. Omar's husband. His venture capital firm made millions over the past few years, according to Ms. Omar's financial disclosures.

No evidence has yet been produced showing that Ms. Omar was connected to the fraud scheme. A spokeswoman for Ms. Omar said her office had received no official inquiries from the Oversight Committee or the Justice Department.

Mr. Comer is still seeking to raise ethical questions about how Ms. Omar's husband has been able to accumulate his wealth and he has promised an update on a potential investigation soon.

His "winery" isn't a real winery.

It's a "virtual winery." I don't know what that means. I would guess it means he just buys other people's wines and puts it into his own bottles, maybe?

Adam Housley @adamhousley

So after doing a quick dive. This was a virtual winery with basically one wine that nobody in wine country had ever heard of. There is absolutely zero chance the valuation on this went from $20,000 to $ 5 million in one year.

The whole business is accused of being a, get this, fraudulent scheme.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar's husband accused of swindling investor in their California winery Tim Mynett and his business partner Will Hailer deny defrauding the investor, while another company they started owes $1.2 million to cannabis growers in South Dakota

In fall 2021, D.C.-area restaurant owner Naeem Mohd was presented with an unbelievable investment opportunity.

Two political operatives turned venture capitalists would triple Mohd's money in just 18 months if he invested $300,000 in their new California winery.

The pair had been paid in grapes by a former client and had hired a well-respected Sonoma winemaker to turn those grapes into profit.

I guess that's why it's a "virtual winery." They literally just took grapes given to them by a "client" and put them into barrels.

And somehow this turned into a $40 million business in a year.

They promised if they didn't pay Mohd the full $900,000 on time, they would tack on 10% monthly interest on any outstanding balance, according to the contract shared with the Minnesota Reformer.

The offer might have seemed suspicious if not for the person making it: Tim Mynett, a well-connected political consultant and husband to U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, whom he married in 2020.

Mynett came recommended by Mohd's attorney, Faisal Gill, a former Democratic operative himself who knew Mynett from his days working on Keith Ellison's congressional campaigns. Mynett and Gill had been friends since. Omar endorsed Gill in his unsuccessful bid for L.A. County Attorney, and Gill donated $1,000 to Omar's campaign in 2021.

"I trusted Tim," Gill said in an interview. "If it was not for Tim, the deal would have never happened."

Mohd wired the $300,000 to Mynett and his long-time business partner Will Hailer, with whom he founded a political consultancy called E Street Group in 2018.

But 18 months came and went without Mohd receiving the 200% return he was promised from the winery, eStCru.

Mynett and Hailer only returned Mohd's $300,000 -- about a month late -- according to a lawsuit Gill filed on behalf of Mohd in California last fall seeking at least $780,000.

The complaint, which has not been previously reported, claims the pair "fraudulently misrepresented ... that estCru, LLC was a legitimate company."

Hailer and Mynett deny they defrauded Mohd. Rather, they say they simply struggled to build a successful business in a challenging industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"ESTCRU LLC like many wineries is living invoice to invoice, sale to sale to stay afloat given the economic conditions of the industry," Hailer wrote in response to a list of questions from the Reformer. Hailer declined requests for an interview on the phone.

The winery's struggling finances represent a significant change in fortune for Mynett and Hailer since Omar announced she would no longer use their firm E Street Group on her campaigns after paying them around $3 million in the 2020 election.

Still, Hailer defended the potential for large returns in the wine business, writing, "If any investor put $X dollars in to allow the company to purchase grapes and we turned those grapes into bottles of wine that we sold you would see a 3 or 4x return."

This sounds like a scam. Actual wineries struggle to make this much of a return. Heck, they struggle to save into business. So this "business's" big innovation is to just not bother growing the grapes yourself?

posted by Ace at 05:42 PM

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