The AP Goes to Bat for Ilhan Omar As Her Tax Fraud Scandal Widens

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., listens as Office of Management and Budget Acting Director Russell Vought testifies before the House Budget Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, March 12, 2019, during a hearing on the fiscal year 2020 budget. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Last week, we were given the news that Ilhan Omar had committed campaign finance violations, something investigative voices on the right had been saying for a while.

Advertisement

It took an announcement by the Minnesota campaign finance officials to finally get a few mainstream outlets to notice. Then things got worse, as it became clear that part of the entire scheme involved her filing joint tax returns with someone she wasn’t married to, all while simultaneously being married to another man.

Redstate Senior Managing Editor streiff covered that story.

When the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board released its report requiring the pro-terrorist, anti-American, anti-Semitic bigot who happens to represent Minnesota’s Fifth Congressional to pay nearly $3,500 in fines and restitution for diverting campaign contributions to her own personal use, they buried the lede. Apparently, she not only scammed her contributors to enrich herself, she also engaged is several years of calculated income tax fraud.

So for at least two years, Omar committed tax fraud. As streiff points out though, the investigators were only interested in the years she received donations. There’s a very good chance the fraud goes back even further.

If this were a Republican, it’d be huge news. As it stands, I’m not even sure CNN has reported on it and the only mention from a major paper I’ve seen is The Washington Post’s Aaron Blake retweeting a local report covering the scam.

Advertisement

The Associated Press did finally put out a story on the ordeal, but decided to use it’s position to essentially shill for Omar. Instead of an investigative piece on her wrongdoing as you’d see with any other non-liberal politician, they found an “expert” to do a Q&A ensuring everyone that Omar is in the clear.

Despite the mainstream press’ desire to bury this story, Omar’s hometown paper has a bit of a harsher (but not too harsh) take. While they are extremely pro-Democratic party, the Star Tribune’s editorial board took the Congresswoman to task for her continual drama.

Advertisement

It’s against the law in Minnesota to file jointly unless one filer is legally married to the other. Last year Omar told the Star Tribune that she had married her partner “in her faith,” and had earlier divorced her first husband “in her faith.” That’s fine for religious purposes. But for tax purposes, only civil marriages qualify. It’s not known whether she benefited materially by filing jointly. That is something that voters, who are obliged to follow tax laws no matter how painful, are entitled to know.

Omar’s excuse has been to say she was divorced and remarried in her “faith.” The IRS doesn’t care about that though, or they wouldn’t if Omar weren’t part of the privileged class. She broke the law, period.

Omar’s political rise has been marred by a series of unforced errors, including intemperate remarks and tweets earlier this year that were widely perceived as anti-Semitic. Every month seems to bring a fresh problem.

You can sense that patience is running out. I don’t know if this means Omar will face serious challengers in 2020, but the possibility is strong.

In the end, Omar will likely skate because that’s what all liberal politicians tend to do. There’s no logical reason why she shouldn’t be staring down an indictment right now.

Advertisement

There is some sweet, sweet irony in all this though. After crying about Trump’s tax returns, Omar (and Democrats) are now left scrambling to excuse the fact that she won’t release her tax information to show exactly what was going on. If you go on Twitter, this is a good characterization of the liberal response.

Liberals a week ago: “Donald Trump is a tax cheat and should be in prison despite me having no evidence of that!”

Liberals today: “Nobody cares about tax fraud, rube!”

Republicans should keep pressing on this issue. Omar shouldn’t be anywhere near Congress and seeing her ousted in 2020 would be a good thing. Don’t let the media dictate the terms here. Go hard and don’t worry about getting called a bigot. They are going to do that anyway.

————————————————-

Enjoying the read? Please visit my archive and check out some of my latest articles.

I’ve got a new twitter! Please help by following @bonchieredstate.

Recommended

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on RedState Videos