Ilhan Omar targeted in campaign spending complaint over $369,000 to alleged lover's firm
Omar's attorneys have dismissed the FEC complaint as a baseless 'political ploy.'
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar is the subject of a campaign spending complaint to the Federal Election Commission that claims she paid her alleged lover's firm hundreds of thousands of dollars since August 2018.
Peter Flaherty of the conservative National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint against Omar in August and amended it in October with additional payment records. In total, Omar's payments to political consultant Tim Mynett's The E Street Group total about $369,000.
Omar confirmed she was divorcing husband Ahmed Hirsi in October.
Flaherty's complaint was filed one day after it emerged that Beth Mynett, 55, submitted divorce papers in Washington, D.C., Superior Court, claiming her husband suddenly informed her earlier this year that he was having an affair with Omar.
Ilhan Omar is a freshman representative from Minnesota.
She has denied that she had an affair with Mynett, and her attorneys have dismissed the FEC complaint as a baseless "political ploy."
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Eight disbursements from Ilhan's campaign to the E Street Group for "travel expenses," totaling $21,546.94, were not itemized. FEC rules, the NLPC said, require that such travel expenses list the individual benefitting from the arrangement, as well as the date and purpose of the payment.
NLPC said that Omar's team instead only listed E Street as the payee, and contained no details on the trips.
"Although Mynett's formal relationship with Rep. Omar's campaign began in July 2018, with the payment of $7,000 directly to Mynett, the reimbursements for Mynett's travel did not commence until April 2019, the same month that [Beth] Mynett alleges in her filing that her husband told her of the affair, and made a 'shocking declaration of love' for Rep. Omar," the complaint stated.
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"It appears that ... Mynett's travel as reported by Ilhan for Congress may have been unrelated, or only partially related, to Omar's campaign," the complaint continued, noting that "romantic companionship" is not a legitimate reason to spend campaign funds on travel.
FOX Business' inquiries to Omar's office and attorney David Mitrani were not returned at the time of publication.
Fox News' Gregg Re, Andrew O'Reilly and Ronn Blitzer contributed to this report.