WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump regularly insults and derides Rep. Ilhan Omar, but now he’s escalating his threats.
The congresswoman’s financial disclosure reports have given Trump a new line of attack: he’s suggested the Somali-born Democrat, often a sharp critic of the president’s foreign and domestic policies, is guilty of fraud and said the Justice Department and Congress are investigating.
“The DOJ and Congress are looking at ‘Congresswoman’ Illhan [sic] Omar, who left Somalia with nothing, and is now reportedly worth more than 44 million dollars. Time will tell all,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday.
Despite the threat, no one has yet to produce any evidence of wrongdoing by Omar, who has represented the 5th District since 2019.
Every member of the U.S. House and U.S. Senate are required to file financial disclosure forms every year.
But these forms, which also require the disclosure of a spouse’s assets, report a lawmaker’s investment holdings and liabilities in wide ranges, so only a broad view of their assets and debts are made public.
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 Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, as holding interest in a winery in Santa Rosa, California, worth between $200 and $1,000.
Related: Trump is ending protected immigration status for Somalis, long a target of his anti-immigrant barbs
Mynett also listed as an asset interest in Rose Lake Capital, which describes itself on its web site as a company with vast international experience whose expertise includes “structuring deals, mergers and acquisitions, debt structuring and capital raising.” The company 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 in California was listed at being valued at between $1 million and $5 million.
So, Trump seized on the skyrocketing valuations of Mynett’s companies, and so have conservative media outlets like Fox News.
A spokesperson for Omar called the attacks a “right-wing smear campaign” and “inaccurate.”
“She does not have millions in the bank,” the spokesperson said. “The financial disclosure clearly shows that the income her husband received (from Rose Lake Capital) did not exceed $15,000.”
The financial disclosures show Mynett received between $15,000 and $50,000 from that business in 2023 and no revenue from Rose Lake Capital in 2024.
The spokesperson also said the valuation of the companies in question “reflects the full cost assessment of the businesses, in which her husband is one of several partners, and does not reflect her husband’s individual share.”
Omar’s office, however, did not respond to questions about the companies’ rapidly increased valuation or the actual value of Mynett’s companies.
DOJ says ‘no comment’
Although the Justice Department has been quick to announce prosecutions of other Trump political foes, it has been silent about the president’s comments into an investigation of Omar.
When asked about Trump’s announcement of an investigation, a Justice Department spokesman said “the department declines to comment.”
A spokesperson for Omar also said the congresswoman has received “no notice” of an investigation.
Omar responded to Trump’s Truth Social post with a post on X.
“Sorry, Trump, your support is collapsing and you’re panicking,” Omar wrote on X. “Right on cue, you’re deflecting from your failures with lies and conspiracy theories about me. Years of ‘investigations’ have found nothing. Get your goons out of Minnesota.”
The New York Times reported this week that the Justice Department, during the Biden administration, opened a probe of Omar’s finances but dropped it because of a lack of evidence.
Omar, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has been a chief critic of “Operation Metro Surge,” the immigration crackdown in Minnesota that began on Dec. 1 that has resulted in the fatal shootings by federal agents of Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
Omar was assaulted by a member of the audience at a town hall Tuesday evening, later identified as Anthony James Kazmiercza, after the lawmaker said Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “must resign or face impeachment.”
Related: Amid a garden variety town hall, an attacker sprayed a substance at Ilhan Omar and then was subdued
Kazmiercza lunged at Omar and sprayed an unknown substance on her from a syringe. The attack is being investigated by the FBI.
A spokeswoman for Omar said threats to the lawmaker increase after Trump issues a new volley of verbal attacks on her.
Meanwhile, Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., the head of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has said that either his panel or the House Ethics Committee will investigate Omar’s finances.
But the committee, which is investigating fraud in Minnesota’s social service programs, has not made clear what it intends to do.
“The House Oversight Committee is working on addressing ethics concerns regarding Rep. Omar and her spouse, and we hope to have an update soon,” said a committee spokeswoman in an emailed statement.
The post Trump says DOJ, Congress to investigate Ilhan Omar, though no proof of wrongdoing has been given appeared first on MinnPost.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
