The marital arrangement hasn’t stopped her campaign from paying Mynett’s E Street Group $292,814.99 this year.
By David Isaac, World Israel News
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s new husband Tim Mynett has received $878,930.65 from Omar’s campaign since 2018, when he began working for her, The New York Post reported on Tuesday.
It amounts to one-third of all the Minnesota Democrat’s campaign cash.
Omar announced her marriage in March to Mynett, who was working for her as a political consultant. He was married to another woman at the time. Omar, too, was married.
“From partners in politics to life partners, so blessed,” she captioned an Instagram picture of the two newlyweds in March.
Apparently, in more ways than one as the money her campaign pays her husband goes into the family coffers.
The marital arrangement hasn’t stopped her campaign from paying Mynett’s E Street Group $292,814.99 this year for digital advertising, fundraising consulting, video editing services, campaign merchandise, literature production and research services, according to the Federal Election Commission.
“Omar is by far the E Street Group’s biggest client, according to Open Secrets data,” the Post reports. The Washington Examiner, in a late-August 2019 report, found that “nearly one in every three of Omar’s campaign dollars” went to her then alleged lover’s firm.
Attorney Richard W. Painter, chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush, told the Post, “It should not be allowed.”
“I think it’s a horrible idea to allow it, given the amount of money that goes into these campaigns from special interests,” he said.
Omar is taking advantage of a loophole in a 1960s anti-nepotism law which prohibits congresspeople from hiring family for government jobs. But it doesn’t include campaign positions, Painter said.
Fox News reports that the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative group, urged the FEC to investigate after it became public that Omar and Mynett were having an affair.
If the FEC does investigate, Omar will have to prove that she’s paying fair-market rates for Mynett’s work, Fox reports.
In a March tweet, Omar claimed “we pay fair market value for these services.”
The appearance of self-enrichment nevertheless is impossible to avoid, this from a woman who accused American Jews of buying political support and being “All about the Benjamins, baby.”