WASHINGTON – A key congressional watchdog committee has asked the House Committee on Ethics to look into financial matters tied to Rep. Ilhan Omar and her husband.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in early February requested financial documents from Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, after President Donald Trump insinuated wrongdoing over a sharp rise in the value of two businesses Mynett has ownership interests in.
On Tuesday, a spokeswoman for the committee said Mynett has not complied with the request.
She said the issue had been referred to the House Ethics Committee, which administers and enforces the rules of conduct for House members and their employees. It conducts investigations into alleged violations and lawmakers have resigned because they were the subject of a probe by the Ethics Committee, including former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.
Related: Oversight chair Comer requests wide range of business documents from Ilhan Omar’s husband
“Americans have concerns about Rep. Omar’s skyrocketing wealth while in public office,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. “The House Oversight Committee initiated a probe into these concerns and has asked the House Ethics Committee to do its job and review this matter.”
The Ethics Committee did not respond when asked if it was investigating Omar, D-5th District, but it rarely comments on its investigations. However, since it’s a bipartisan committee — composed of five Democratic House members and five Republican lawmakers — the ethics panel may vote to ignore the request to investigate Omar and her husband.
Omar’s office did not respond when asked if the lawmaker had been advised that she was the subject of an ethics investigation.
The referral to the Ethics Committee was made by Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who had asked Mynett to turn over a wide variety of documents.
Those include emails, filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other information — including all related to any travel to Somalia, Kenya or the United Arab Emirates undertaken by anyone affiliated with Mynett’s companies.
Comer is also investigating Medicaid fraud in Minnesota and on Tuesday subpoenaed Attorney General Pam Bondi as part of its probe of the Justice Department’s investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
‘No evidence of wrongdoing’
Omar’s finances became an issue for Trump and his supporters because there was a sharp increase between 2023 and 2024 in the value of two companies partly owned by Mynett, according to the lawmaker’s annual financial disclosure statements.
In 2023, Omar’s financial disclosure form (filed in 2024) showed modest outside income and assets and credit card and student loan debt worth between $45,000 and $150,000. That disclosure form also listed Mynett as having an interest in eStCru, a winery in California, worth between $200 and $1,000.
Mynett also listed an asset interest in Rose Lake Capital, a consulting company that was listed as being valued at between $15,000 to $50,000.
A year later, on Omar’s 2024 financial disclosure form (filed in 2025), Rose Lake Capital was listed as being worth $5 million and $25 million. And the winery was listed at being valued at between $1 million and $5 million.
“Given that these companies do not publicly list their investors or where their money comes from, this sudden jump in value raises concerns that unknown individuals may be investing to gain influence with your wife,” Comer wrote Mynett. “Media reports further suggest that you may have raised money from investors using misleading information, meaning some of those funds may have been obtained improperly.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., the top Democrat on Comer’s panel, said committee Republicans “are abusing the power of the House Oversight Committee to target and harass Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and her family.”
In a statement, Garcia also said those committee Republicans have “weaponized the committee to attack the husband of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, demanding financial disclosures from his companies despite no evidence of wrongdoing.”
Trump, meanwhile, on Monday directed a new federal fraud task force to investigate Omar, looking into an unproven allegation that the lawmaker “married her brother.”
Trump also said his new panel, headed by Vice President JD Vance, would prove that Omar, Gov. Tim Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison were “complicit” in the fraud that has been detected in some of the state’s Medicaid-funded social welfare programs.
“She’s one of the ringleaders,” Trump said of Omar, as he continues a bitter running feud with the lawmaker.
The Democratic congresswoman shot back in a post on X. “The most disturbing part of his unhinged comments is how comfortable he is in telling the world how stupid he and his followers are,” Omar said. “But I guess it’s expected from a man who regularly and publicly fantasized about sleeping with his own daughter and is clearly implicated in the worst pedophile coverup case.”
This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
There are significant questions regarding Omar’s finances. However Trump never even made his tax forms available. Don’t throw rocks from a glass house after all
It’s well known that Omar is a powerful fundraiser. One plausible explanation is that a lot of the campaign money is being run through her husband’s political consulting firm. His fees may be tastelessly high, but certainly not illegal as long as he is taking care of Uncle Sam and his state authorities at year end.