Fox News is reporting that Rep. Ilhan Omar’s campaign has paid out comparatively little in consulting fees after cutting ties with a firm co-owned by her husband.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings reviewed by the outlet, Omar’s payments to political consultants fell to around $1 million during the 2022 midterm election season.
That is a two-thirds decline from the nearly $3 million she had paid to E Street Group, a firm co-owned by her husband, Tim Mynett, during the 2020 election cycle, when she faced a far less competitive primary challenger.
Omar’s campaign paid multiple consulting firms for many of the same services she had paid E Street Group for, such as direct mail advertising and video production and editing.
One of the groups, Barnett Strategies LLC, is owned by a former E Street Group director, according to Fox News.
Following scrutiny of her relationship with her husband’s firm, Omar announced in November 2020 she would sever financial ties with E Street Group.
“I want to make sure that anybody who is supporting our campaign with their time or financial support feels there is no perceived issue with that support,” she said at the time.
Barnett Strategies LLC was formed two months after Omar ended her relationship with E Street Group.
It has been estimated that nearly 78% of E Street Group’s total income in 2019 and 2020 came from Omar’s campaign, with much of those funds coming after Omar’s March 2020 marriage to Mynett.
Fox News reported last April that E Street Group received $15,000 from a Minnesota DFL Party committee on Feb. 25 — only two days after Omar’s campaign paid the DFL committee the same amount.
The most recent report raises further questions about the nature of Omar’s payments to E Street Group and her overall money-handling. Omar has previously been the subject of an unrelated House ethics complaint and other allegations of ethics violations.
The FEC dismissed a complaint in January 2022 alleging Omar used campaign funds to carry out an affair with Mynett, whose ex-wife stated in a divorce filing that his travel was “more related to his affair with Rep. Omar than his actual work commitments.”
Evan Stambaugh
Evan Stambaugh is a freelance writer who had previously been a sports blogger. He has a BA in theology and an MA in philosophy.
