Ilhan Omar: The Democrats’ Festering Sore

The heat’s getting turned up on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN). The DOJ and House Republicans have opened up investigations into her skyrocketing household net worth. She's responding by amping up her already incendiary rhetoric. Last month, the congresswoman tweeted this about Donald Trump: “The leader of the pedophile protection party is trying to deflect from his name being all over the Epstein files. At least in Somalia, they execute pedophiles, not elect them.”

The wisdom of speaking about a vindictive president like this while his DOJ’s putting your finances under the microscope is elusive. It may just be force of habit for Omar, whose rhetoric is mostly negative and confrontational. When the topic of the U.S. comes up, her voice and face drip with disdain. She offers the country that rescued her from hell only contempt and critique, but it's never delivered as constructive criticism. It's abnormal to be so lacking in gratitude in this position. Omar comes off as a privileged narcissist who sees favors and kindnesses as owed to her.

The mystery is what that contempt for the country that rescued her was born of. Omar's life has improved steadily since she left a Kenyan refugee camp to come to this country. Perhaps her sense of entitlement stems from being the daughter of colonel Nur Omar Mohamed, who had a military career in the Somali National Army under dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia from 1969 to 1991. The colonel trained in the Soviet Union during the Cold War era when Somalia was aligned with the USSR. It's credible to speculate that the colonel acquired some anti-U.S. sentiments during his time in Moscow that he may have passed on to his daughter.

While Omar, in her memoir, refers to her father as an “educator,” in fact he was a high-ranking officer who served a tyrannical dictator who was directly responsible for widespread atrocities, human rights abuses, war crimes, and acts widely described as crimes against humanity and, in specific cases, genocide.

Ilhan Omar wants people to think she fled Somalia to escape oppression, when the truth is that her family was part of the oppression. A bigger oppressor then came along and forced them out of the nation. Such people aren’t generally considered “refugees.” Omar told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes that militia members invaded their home to harm them, but that family members were able to talk them out of their intended violence. It would seem that such a horrific childhood memory would remain into adulthood, and that the feeling of living in a nation where this doesn't happen would be one of relief and gratitude.

Omar’s political career has been shadowed by ethics questions, but she's now facing serious charges of financial improprieties with a vindictive president leading the charge against her. Trump, who’s claiming Omar's net worth is $44 million (nobody knows where that figure came from), has his compliant DOJ investigating her finances. The rest of the media is claiming that her household net worth is $30 million, a speculative figure that's become axiomatic among Republicans due to some shoddy reporting by Fox News and other conservative media outlets.

Omar claims she has no money; that she's still paying off student loans. But her husband's net worth has risen dramatically in a short period of time, which is raising questions that the DOJ will pursue with vigor. Tim Mynett has ownership stakes in a California winery called eStCru and a venture capital management firm called Rose Lake Capital. According to congressional financial disclosures filed by Rep. Omar, her husband's stake in eStCru was valued at between $15,001 and $50,000 in 2023, but jumped to a reported value of between $1 million and $5 million in 2024. Mynett’s stake in Rose Lake Capital LLC, a firm he co-founded, rose from a reported value of between $1 and $1000 in 2023 to between $5 million and $25 million in 2024. Conservative media has chosen to use the high end of both ranges, giving them the hyperbolic $30 million figure they want. That figure’s now parroted in every right-wing media report on this issue.

Rose Lake Capital’s website claims the firm manages $60 billion in assets. It's an odd, one-page site so stripped down that it contains no names, phone numbers, and no email addresses. There’s no publicly available phone number, address, or employee information for this company. Investigative reporters found that the firm’s official D.C. headquarters was a WeWork location that appeared to be little more than a mail drop. A 2022 lawsuit revealed that Rose Lake Capital had only $42.44 in its bank account at that time.

For a firm managing such substantial assets, Rose Lake has left almost no footprint. eStCru, which no longer has a functional website, also seems to barely exist. On the internet, there's a Santa Rosa, California listing for the main mailing address for the firm, but there's no publicly listed phone number or identifiable wine-producing or tasting facility.

It’s unusual that one winery could have such remarkable success when the wine market’s tanking. By early-2024, court records showed that eStCru had little cash left and had largely stopped operating. It's impossible to even buy a bottle of eStCru wine online. Wine databases list about 11 wines under the eStCru label, but their “where to buy” links return no results.

Ilhan Omar has a big mouth she can't control. She says things that dog her for years, like this old quote: “I would say our country should be more fearful of white men across our country, because they are actually causing most of the deaths within this country.” In fact, the homicide rate is eight times higher among black Americans than white Americans.

Veteran Democrat strategist James Carville said: “Lady, why don’t you just get out of the Democratic Party. Honestly, start your own movement.” Carville doesn't think that alienating one-third of the voters is a good idea for the Democrats. Omar, who’s reactive, couldn't care less about her party’s serious problem of bleeding male voters. She has her own agenda.

While Omar’s party hasn't turned on her yet, the setup’s in place for Democrats to view her as more trouble than she's worth. There's no fondness among Democrats for her, even in Minnesota, and her legislative accomplishments are minimal. Her role is mostly performative. Now, for the first time (the Biden DOJ opened an investigation into her finances that fizzled out) her husband's businesses are facing real scrutiny and, on the surface at least, the numbers are looking suspicious. His two sketchy shadow firms have grown at an astronomical rate in just a year, but where's the income coming from? Who are the customers? The Republicans are trying to make the case that the income’s coming from Minnesota’s huge Somali-connected public assistance scandal.

Ilhan Omar’s facing a primary election in August. She's already a drag on the Dems’ prospects. The bad news will start trickling out soon enough. Minnesota’s the Dems’ biggest hornet’s nest at the moment, and it's showing tremendous growth potential.