On August 27, Dr. Beth Mynett filed for divorce from Democratic political consultant Tim Mynett. Dr. Mynett’s filing — submitted under penalty of perjury — included claims that raised the gossipy open secret of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s extramarital affair with Tim Mynett to a more serious matter of public corruption.
The divorce filing suggested serial campaign finance violations by Rep. Omar. (Questionable finances have been a recurring theme with Omar; in June of this year she was found guilty of a half-dozen or so violations.) The divorce filing also included one disturbing allegation about Rep. Omar’s character and judgment.
For a couple days, Dr. Mynett’s filing drew the expected attention from local and national media. However, it did not draw their expected effort or competency.
On the evening of the 27th, Minneapolis CBS affiliate WCCO aired an exclusive interview with Rep. Omar. WCCO’s Esme Murphy asked Omar if she had separated from her husband Ahmed Hirsi — described that week by multiple outlets as a senior policy aide to Minneapolis City Councilwoman Alondra Cano — and was now dating someone else.
Rep. Omar answered: “No, I am not. As I said yesterday, I have no interest in allowing the conversation about my personal life to continue and so I have no desire to discuss it.”
Remarkably, media generally accepted both Omar’s denial and her framing of the story as being limited to her “personal life.”
Further, no outlet investigated one conspicuous matter of public interest raised by the story: “Senior Policy Aide” to a Minneapolis City Council member is a taxpayer-funded position.
Certainly, Ahmed Hirsi’s work for Councilwoman Cano’s might be affected by corruption issues involving his wife.
————————————
(Not pictured: “Policy Aide Ahmed Hirsi”.)
During the summer, sources* within the Minneapolis Somali community informed me that Rep. Ilhan Omar has been using financial leverage to prevent Ahmed Hirsi from filing for divorce.
Ahmed Hirsi’s employment with Councilwoman Cano was quietly terminated months ago: June 14.
The June 14 termination of Ahmed Hirsi’s employment is public data. Anyone can verify this information by filing a request with the City of Minneapolis City Clerk.
My sources stated that Ahmed Hirsi was terminated following a request by Rep. Omar. They added that Omar’s motivation for the request was to force Hirsi to become reliant upon her assets and income.
For the majority of 2019, Ahmed Hirsi has reportedly borne the responsibility of raising the three children he has with Omar. (One source used the term “abandoned” to describe Ilhan’s recent share of the parenting.) Since June 14, Hirsi does not appear to have a reliable source of income.
Meanwhile, Rep. Omar currently draws a $174,000 Congressional salary, and reportedly received a $250,000 book advance in January.
————————-
Scott Johnson’s September 3 article at Powerline, “Ilhan Omar Feels the Heat”, included similar information regarding Omar pressuring Hirsi to remain her legal husband.
Wrote Johnson:
In the past three weeks I have circled back to interview sources whom I have found to be highly reliable in the Omar saga. They open a window onto the scandals from the perspective of Ahmed Hirsi, her long-time partner and the father of her three children. According to sources, Hirsi is telling friends:
- that he will not go to jail for Omar;
- that while Omar did indeed marry her brother (Ahmed Elmi) for fraudulent purposes, Hirsi did not know at the time that she had married Elmi;
- that Omar is threatening Hirsi he would be in trouble along with her if the truth were to come out;
- that Omar has asked him to state publicly that all is well with their marriage even though it is completely done and finished; and
- that in fact they are living apart and have been divorced under Islamic law (although they remain legally married).”
Having humiliated Ahmed Hirsi by her affair with Tim Mynett, Omar now wants Hirsi to perform public relations services for her to suppress the scandal. That is cold.
Hirsi has maintained his silence through all the scandals so far. One may infer that there is a good reason why Hirsi has never spoken up on Omar’s behalf in any of these scandals. Hirsi’s knowledge of Omar’s conduct is knowledge of her wrongdoing.
My sources have long described the Omar/Hirsi separation as an “open secret” among much of the community. However, they also stated that the potential contents of a Hirsi divorce filing would likely magnify Omar’s legal exposure.
Further, they stated that Omar is concerned that a significant percentage of local Somali voters would no longer support her should they be convinced Omar violated her Islamic marriage vows.
Hirsi has indeed maintained his silence, and not spoken up on Omar’s behalf. My sources assert that Omar’s financial pressure is a primary cause.
——————-
Yet again, local and national media has failed to identify or address pivotal information about Ilhan Omar.
Take another look at that August 27 interview. WCCO’s Esme Murphy really did ask Omar the follow-up question which countless writers have used to parody a starstruck media: “You seem completely unfazed and unbowed by negative publicity about your personal life that you don’t want to comment on. How do you do it?”
Ilhan Omar, of course, didn’t “do it.” Esme Murphy did.
For three years, Omar and a disturbingly compliant media have repeated this pattern. First, Rep. Omar will bumble her cover-up of perhaps the most extensive spree of illegal misconduct committed by a House member in American history. Then, the media will deliberately whiff on what could have been the scoop of their careers.
Minnesota voters deserve to know about Omar’s actions that relate to her duties as an elected official. But more importantly — now that Omar has become a history-changing international disgrace — we all need to understand why we’re still being kept in the dark.
——————-
David Steinberg was New York City Editor at PJMedia from 2009-2019, primarily handling coverage of Israel, homeland security, and political corruption. His investigation of Eric Cantor’s 2014 primary campaign is credited (ask Dave Brat!) with tipping the historic loss, perhaps the beginning of the “Trump Era.” Since 2018, Steinberg has published several articles of exclusive evidence covering Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past; they can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/2FJq529.
Follow David Steinberg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/realDSteinberg
This article was updated to include an explanation for the use of anonymous sources to corroborate this story.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member