Washington D.C. is rife with abuses. But there are abuses and then there's utterly flagrant contempt for even the appearance of propriety.
Rep. Omar has been accused of marrying her brother. But that's not even the most corrupt relationship that she's in. That would be the time she cheated on her husband (not the brother, the other husband) with her political consultant.
And then it got worse from there.
Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D., Minn.) campaign payments to her husband's firm accounted for nearly 80 percent of its cash haul during the 2020 elections, federal filings show.
The E Street Group, a D.C. consulting firm owned by Tim Mynett, Omar's husband, and his partner Will Hailer, received $3.7 million from political committees this past cycle. Omar's campaign was by far its biggest moneymaker, doling out 146 checks for $2.9 million, or 78 percent of the firm's payments. Its second biggest cash source was Omar mentor Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.), whose campaign provided $194,000. The two combined for 85 percent of the firm's payments.
Omar's payments to E Street constituted a large part of her campaign expenditures. Her committee spent $5.2 million, meaning that the $2.9 million that she funneled to her husband's firm was 56 percent of the campaign's operational costs.
How do you deal with a problem like Omar? With the OMAR bill.
Two House Republicans introduced a bill named after Rep. Ilhan Omar, which aims to prevent politicians from paying spouses with campaign funds.
“For too long, lawmakers of both political parties have engaged in the ethically dubious practice of pocketing campaign funds by ‘hiring’ their spouses and laundering the money as campaign-related expenses,” Rep. Tom Tiffany, who introduced the bill with Rep. Mike Gallagher, said in a press release.
“Loopholes that allow members of Congress to funnel campaign funds to their spouses are despicable and erode trust in our government,” Gallagher added.
It's a clever move that will obviously be blocked, but Republicans, stuck in the minority, are looking for creative ways to push back and put Democrats on the defensive. Calling attention to Democrat corruption is one way to do that. And while Omar might have taken this so far that even Democrats were disgusted, funneling money to family members and friends is routine. And any push to crack down on it is welcome.
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