The Biden Justice Department launched an investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar's finances and her "interactions with a foreign citizen" in 2024, the same year the Minnesota Democrat saw her net worth skyrocket from practically nothing to upwards of $30 million, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
The identity of the foreign citizen with whom Omar allegedly interacted is unknown, and the Times reported that the Biden administration's investigation, which was launched in June 2024 by the U.S. attorney's office in Washington, D.C., had stalled due to a lack of evidence.
But news of the investigation's existence comes after a Washington Free Beacon report in September that found Omar's personal fortune had skyrocketed from no more than $51,000 at the end of 2023 to upward of $30 million at the end of 2024. The extraordinary increase of at least 3,500 percent derived almost entirely from her husband's ownership stake in two companies, including his private equity firm, Rose Lake Capital, which boasts relationships with investment bankers and venture capital companies across the globe.
House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. James Comer (R., Ky.) said in January that his office is exploring the possibility of subpoenaing Omar's husband, Tim Mynett, over his business practices. And President Donald Trump said in a Monday Truth Social post that the Department of Justice is also "looking at" Omar, "who left Somalia with NOTHING, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 Million Dollars."
As for Omar's alleged interactions with a foreign citizen, investigators will have plenty of material to work with. Shortly after Mynett founded Rose Lake Capital in 2022 with his business partner, Will Hailer, Omar formed the U.S.-Africa Policy Working Group, where she leads 20 members of Congress "committed to building partnership with the continent of Africa."
Since then, Omar and Mynett have been pictured together at events hosted by the EBII Group, a company that helps facilitate international investments in Africa. Omar was the keynote speaker at the group's African Leaders and Partners forum in 2023, where she called on Congress to approve a "$44 billion lifeline for African communities." Meanwhile, Hailer, as Rose Lake's CEO, facilitated a panel at the forum discussing the challenges faced by international investors seeking to get their funds out of African countries.
Hailer, a former senior adviser to the DNC, said in a November 2024 sworn declaration that Rose Lake provides "consulting services to global operators in the business space" and has "built relationships with investment bankers, private equity and venture capital companies, corporate operators and consultants across the globe."
Rose Lake Capital is Mynett and Hailer's second private firm. Their first, eSt Ventures, was sued by a pair of South Dakota cannabis companies that claimed Mynett and Hailer diverted $1.7 million of a $3.5 million investment for purposes other than their stated business. When the cannabis companies demanded their money back, Hailer claimed the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had placed a hold on the fund, the Free Beacon reported. OFAC administers trade sanctions on foreign countries and terrorist regimes engaged in the "proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."
Rose Lake Capital claims on its website that its management team managed a collective $60 billion in assets under management. But the firm itself is not registered with the Security and Exchange Commission, the New York Post reported, and some of its prior advisers are now distancing themselves from it.
Those advisers include former senator Max Baucus (D., Mont.), who served as the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee and as former president Barack Obama's ambassador to China. Baucus told the Post he had one phone call with Hailer in 2022 about a storage unit deal and never agreed to have his name listed on Rose Lake Capital's website.
"You can read between the lines," Baucus said—"it sounded a little bit fishy."
Mynett entered the venture capital business after a lengthy stint serving as a consultant for Omar's campaign, during which Mynett and Omar divorced their respective spouses and married each other in 2020. That arrangement saw $2.9 million from Omar's campaign flow into the coffers of Mynett's company E Street Group, drawing intense scrutiny.
Omar, who continues to deny she is worth millions of dollars even after filing a financial disclosure reporting she's worth upward of $30 million, brushed aside the threat of a continuing Justice Department investigation into her finances on Monday.
"Sorry, Trump, your support is collapsing and you're panicking," Omar said in a post on X. "Right on cue, you're deflecting from your failures with lies and conspiracy theories about me. Years of 'investigations' have found nothing."
