The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board have ruled that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) repeatedly violated campaign finance law by using campaign funds to pay for personal expenses while serving on the state legislature in 2016 and 2017.
The Board found that Omar used the funds for personal out-of-state travel and for help in filing joint tax returns for 2014 and 2015. The phrase ‘joint tax returns’ will become much more important as you’ll see below.
She has been ordered to personally reimburse the campaign for just under $3,500. In addition, she must pay a $500 civil penalty for using campaign funds to pay for a trip to Florida, where she received an honorarium at a conference.
“Rep. Omar must personally reimburse the Omar committee $3,469.23,” the Board report concludes. “This reimbursement payment is the total amount of campaign funds that were used for purposes not permitted by statute in 2016 and 2017. Rep. Omar must provide documentation within 30 days from the date of this order showing the deposit of the reimbursement into the Omar committee’s account.”
Minnesota Campaign Finance & Public Disclosure Board has released findings into @IlhanMN ‘s shady spending practices in response to state Rep. Steve Drazkowski’s complaints. She has been ordered to pay about $4,000 in reimbursements & fines, plus file amended disclosures. /1
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) June 6, 2019
Hmm, maybe she was on to something when she tweeted “it’s all about the Benjamins.”
How It All Started
The findings are a result of a pair of complaints filed by Minnesota GOP State Rep. Steve Drazkowski who alleged that Omar had improperly used campaign funds for her own use.
“I had observed a long pattern,” Drazkowski said after filing the complaints. “Representative Omar hasn’t followed the law. She’s repeatedly trampled on the laws of the state in a variety of areas, and gotten by with it.”
That much seems to have been confirmed … but wait!
There Might Be More
Several people noted a bombshell in the report that is being overlooked by the media.
Omar, according to the findings, filed joint tax returns with her current husband, Ahmed Hirsi, in 2014 and 2015. What makes this problematic is that she was still engaged in a civil marriage with Ahmed Nur Said Elmi up until 2017. She married Hirsi in 2018.
Fox News reports: “Tax experts say the IRS only permits joint filings if a couple is in a state that legally recognizes the couple as married.”
The report states that @IlhanMN and Ahmed Hirsi filed joint tax returns in 2014 and 2015.
Yet they were not married. @IlhanMN was married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi from 2009-2017.
According to both federal and MN law, this is illegal. (3/x)
— David Steinberg 🧔🏻 (@realDSteinberg) June 6, 2019
“A sitting congresswoman may have filed EIGHT YEARS of fraudulent, felonious, tax returns,” Steinberg added.
Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin asked her readers, ” Time to get federal IRS officials involved?”
It will be interesting to watch Nancy Pelosi dismiss this as nothing more than Omar being ignorant – you know, like she did when defending her anti-Semitism?
Paraphrasing Pelosi: Perhaps Omar just ‘has a different experience in the use of [tax laws]’ and ‘doesn’t understand that some of them are fraught with [penalties] that she didn’t realize.’