Ilhan Omar's Payments to Husband's Firm Hit $1 Million in 2020 Cycle

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) continues to dish out six-figure payments to her husband's firm, which has now received more than $1 million from her campaign this cycle.

Federal Election Commission records released Tuesday afternoon show that Omar's campaign funneled $228,384.93 last quarter to the E Street Group, a D.C.-based consulting firm run by the congresswoman's husband, Tim Mynett. The payments, predominantly for digital and fundraising services, bring the total that Omar's campaign has sent to Mynett's firm to just over $1 million for the 2020 cycle.

Omar, a freshmen congresswoman, has faced scrutiny over numerous financial and personal issues since she was elected in 2018. She has drawn criticism for a lack of transparency about her previous marriages, over campaign finance violations, and for a potential violation of House ethics rules pertaining to the advance she received on a recently published memoir. Pressed for answers, she has routinely dismissed the inquiries as "smears" and "conspiracy theories."

Mynett's firm is the top vendor for Omar's campaign, which doled out $521,000 between April 1 and June 30 with Mynett's share accounting for 44 percent of that total.

The financial relationship between Mynett and Omar began before the two announced they were married this March, but it is unclear how long the two were romantically linked before they tied the knot. Omar denied the two were romantically involved, but Mynett's then-wife alleged in divorce papers that the two were having an affair.

Omar refused to answer questions about her relationship with her campaign's top vendor. "I have no interest in allowing the conversation about my personal life to continue and so I have no desire to discuss it," she said last year. Her earliest payment to Mynett's firm came in August 2018, during her first run for federal office.