Opponent accuses Rep. Omar of 'enriching herself' from husband's legally touchy business dealings

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - Congresswoman Ilhan Omar is feeling the heat from her political opponent after accusations of fraud against a business partly owned by her husband.

She has no direct connection to the business, but opponents say she benefitted. Her husband is Tim Mynett and his consulting firm legally got about $3 million from her 2020 campaign.

Now he’s involved in a few other business ventures that are involved in lawsuits claiming his company has made money disappear.

Don Samuels seized on reports of fraud against the husband of Rep. Ilhan Omar, his opponent in the race for Congress.

At a press conference Thursday, a FOX 9 reporter asked him when a spouse’s business ventures should become fair game for political attacks.

"When the funds are from a family source, especially when the family source of those funds come from the public," Samuels said.

A decade ago, the FBI investigated whether Samuels used his position on the Minneapolis City Council to funnel money to his wife’s non-profit.

"It was based on no facts," Samuels said. "I was running for mayor and, evidently, somebody wanted to take me out."

He says the FBI dropped it soon after he gave an interview.

In the case of Tim Mynett, whose LinkedIn page shows he was a partner in the E St. group along with Will Hailer, there’s no publicly known criminal investigation.

But there may be something behind the scenes.

"We have connected with federal law enforcement on this," said Ned Horsted, CEO of 605 Cannabis. "I believe that they're looking into it as we speak."

Ned Horsted is the CEO of a South Dakota cannabis company that gave Hailer and Mynett’s company $3.5 million to kickstart investments, but ended up with about $1.8 million back and a court judgment — an IOU — for the other $1.7 million.

Omar’s office tells me she has no involvement in any business ventures and this situation reeks of political desperation.

Horsted says he never dealt with Omar and didn’t even have direct conversations with Mynett, but he’s not convinced they’re unaware.

"If you have a two-person business and one of them is a spouse of a member of Congress it seems suspicious, to say the least, that they never knew about 3.5 million (dollars) that came into the bank account," Horsted said. "They never knew that 1.7 (million dollars) went missing."

Lawyers for Mynett and Hailer say they absolutely did not intend to defraud anyone — in that cannabis business or in a winery deal that’s also the subject of a civil lawsuit.

Hailer referred us to the settlement in the cannabis deal and said the winery business has had some successes, but it’s still a struggle.