Ilhan Omar accused by watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center of failing to disclose proceeds from husband's wine, weed businesses

On Tuesday, a legal complaint filed against Rep. Ilhan Omar, accusing her failing to report tens of thousands in assets regarding business ventures undertaken by her husband, Tim Mynett. Over the past four years, the entrepreneur and his friend, Will Hailer, have launched companies in the wine and cannabis industries that have since become the subject of lawsuits for their alleged failure to pay back investors. 

In a complaint obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, the National Legal and Policy Center called on the Office of Congressional Ethics to "immediately investigate whether [Omar] violated House Ethics Rules by failing to fully disclose and/or by filing false or misleading information regarding the business assets and liabilities of her spouse." 

In 2021 Mynett and Hailer received $300,000 from DC investor and restaurant owner Naeem Mohd for their new winery, eStCru. The pair promised to triple Mohd’s investment in just 18 months. Around 19 months later, only $300,000 was returned to Mohd, leading him to file a lawsuit against them in 2023.  

Around that same time as the lawsuit, three companies founded by Mynett and Hailer, eSt Ventures, Badlands Fund GP and Badlands Ventures, settled a $1.7 million fraud and breach of contract lawsuit filed by marijuana entrepreneurs in South Dakota.  

The complaint against Omar claims that she did not adequately disclose the value of those businesses before they were subject to lawsuits and unraveled.  

In 2021, Omar reported spousal income from EstVenture LLC to be up to $15,000, and her husband’s stake eStCru to be between $15,001 and $50,000.  

In 2022 the income rose to be up to $50,000 and the asset value to between $50,001 and $100,000. In 2023, she reported between $201 and $1,000 from eStCru, with the asset value falling back down to between $15,001 and $50,000.  

As the Minnesota Reformer reports, those figures are far less than what she reported Mynett was bringing in from his consulting firm, E Street Group, to which she paid millions for her reelection campaign. In both 2020 and 2021, she listed Mynett's income from that venture as between $100,001 and $1 million.