Ilhan Omar: Her Washington Week In Review

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Ilhan Omar has been much in evidence Dec. 14 to 20 in Washington. During the impeachment hearings, when Congressman Kevin McCarthy, at the podium on December 18, quoted, as an example of the level of discourse to which some of his opponents had sunk, Rashida Tlaib’s call to “impeach the motherf—–,” Omar immediately began, and continued repeatedly, to scream out from the back of the chamber, “Stop it! Stop it!,” even though McCarthy had not repeated the phrase, but gone on to other matters. Apparently Ilhan Omar didn’t think that Congressman McCarthy had a right to remind the American people of the crudity to which Rashida Tlaib routinely sinks, and to protect her BFF, tried to shout down, in the House of Representatives itself, the freedom of speech of a fellow Congressman. McCarthy, of course, was not maligning Tlaib, only quoting her verbatim – but that was enough to spur Ilhan Omar into hysterical action.

In another example of Omar’s making her indelible mark in Washington, she joined 16 other Congressmen in a letter deploring the Trump Administration’s sanctions on Iran as “economic warfare.” But why is that wrong? That’s exactly what those sanctions are meant to be – “economic warfare” – in order to persuade the Iranians to modify their aggressive behavior, across the Middle East (in Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon), and to slow down their pursuit of nuclear weapons. Why should the Trump Administration not be heartened by the effectiveness of those sanctions rather than, as Ilhan Omar and her 16 colleagues seem to think, be apologetic for their effect? The Administration’s reimposition of sanctions have reduced Iranian oil sales by 90%, from 2.46 mbd to .26 mbd. This has made it harder for the mullahcracy to continue to support the terrorist group Hezbollah in Lebanon; Hezbollah has had to greatly reduce salaries for its members as a result of Iran’s cutting of aid. Nor can Iran offer its previous level of financial support to the Shi’a militias in Iraq. The Iranian rial has sunk in value; Iran’s GDP has actually decreased, the price of gas has had to be increased to raise government revenues; Iran’s people have suffered – that’s exactly what economic sanctions are intended to do.The letter Ilhan signed claims that the sanctions have increased anti-American feeling in Iran. There is no evidence for this; the popular protests in Iran have been directed solely at the Iranian government itself, for its mismanagement, choice of spending priorities, and corruption. Ilhan Omar and her colleagues apparently want those sanctions, that are working so well, to be dramatically reduced, but they offer nothing to take their place. What alternative way to modify the Islamic Republic’s behavior would Ilhan Omar suggest? How would she prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons? Or keep Iran from its foreign aggression?

The report on the letter Ilhan Omar signed is here:

In a letter issued on Tuesday to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the lawmakers wrote that the hefty sanctions the US has imposed on the country was tantamount to “economic warfare.”

The sanctions put in place by this Administration against Iran are nothing less than economic warfare. After years of improving relations between the United States and Iran, the sanctions have devastated that country’s middle class, increased hostility toward the United States, and led to a humanitarian catastrophe. One dire effect has been an entirely preventable shortage of lifesaving medicine.

“This Administration must answer for their attacks on Iranians’ basic human right to affordable medicine,” Rep. Omar said in a statement.

The letter explains that while Iran manufactures 97% of its medicine domestically, the country relies on obtaining the rest through foreign imports.

First, Iran itself makes 97% of all the medicine it needs. That hardly suggests that there is a “humanitarian catastrophe” because of a lack of medicine, unless the remaining 3%, that must be imported, includes medicines that are absolutely critical to the survival of patients, and can be obtained nowhere else. We are not told what those medicines are that need to be imported. Nor is there evidence presented that those imports cannot be obtained from countries other than the U.S., including the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, and China. Ilhan Omar’s letter does not address these other potential sources for these imports. But finally, the main point of the letter – that there is a supposed “humanitarian catastrophe” because of that 3% of Iran’s medicines that the U.S. withholds – is fatally vitiated by the fact that the Department of the Treasury on October 25, 2019 announced a new “humanitarian mechanism” to allow medicine imports into Iran. That didn’t stop Ilhan Omar and her colleagues, nearly two months later, to send their letter to Secretary Mnuchin, ignoring the Treasury’s October 25 announcement. The signatories  didn’t want anyone to be confused with facts. Their minds were made up, that “economic warfare” against Iran is a Bad Thing, and they were willing to continue to complain about the withholding of medicine that, if it had ever occurred, now occurred no longer.

The third event of Ilhan Omar’s Washington week in review didn’t require her presence, but she was indispensable to the story. I am thinking of the proceedings in the divorce court, where Dr. Beth Jordan, the wife of her political consultant and lover Tim Mynett, obtained her final decree. The story is here:

It took all of fifteen minutes, but Rep. Ilhan Omar was slammed as an adulteress in a Washington, DC, divorce court on Dec. 19 as her political consultant/alleged lover formally split from his wife, a report said.

Dr. Beth Jordan accused the Minnesota Democrat of having an affair with her now-ex-husband, political consultant Tim Mynett, during a 16-minute hearing before a judge cut her off, the Daily Mail reported.

“I have a statement to make,” Jordan, 55, said, adding that Mynett “had an affair with Ilhan Omar.”

The allegation was first reported by The Post in August, when Jordan claimed in a divorce filing that Mynett confessed to the affair in a “shocking declaration of love” for Omar in April before ditching his wife.

Mynett, 38, a DC-based political consultant who has worked for Omar’s campaign, laughed and clapped his hands with glee as his left the court on Thursday but was tight-lipped when confronted by media.

So her lover “laughed and clapped his hands with glee.” He left his wife and his child for Ilhan Omar, the outspokenly anti-Israel antisemitic Congresswoman, who famously described 9/11 as a place where “some people did something,” who is in all kinds of trouble with the law for failing to correctly report her campaign contributions, and may or may not have married her brother in order to ensure that he could enter the U.S. and receive student loans.

As for Tim Mynett, his relationship with Omar has been disturbing in every sense. She has paid him, as a political consultant, between January and mid-October of 2019, a “consulting fee” of $310,000. That’s $34,444 a month. He must be a very good consultant. The unusually large amounts he has received from her campaign have raised questions, given Omar’s extramarital affair with him, that remain to be answered.

When Beth Jordan charged Ilhan Omar for being an “adulteress,” it seems not to have fazed Omar. Has she, the great Defender of Islam, forgotten what would happen were she living in a Muslim country such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, where the Sharia is fully enforced, and convicted of adultery? One hundred lashes, then death by lapidation. Does she approve? It would be nice if some reporter were to ask her that very question. Consistency is not her strong suit.

There has always been so much going on in Omar’s  busy life.

There’s still the question of her brother, as mentioned above.  Omar is credibly accused of marrying her brother, Nur Said Elmi, in order to commit immigration and student-loan fraud, and even filed fraudulent tax returns. While married to Elmi, she filed a joint return with another man, Ahmed Hirsi, to whom she was not married at the time.

She is also accused of using campaign money not for political purposes, but on personal travel with Tim Mynett. This is still being investigated by the FEC.

She has already been required by the Minnesota Campaign Board to reimburse her own campaign for money she spent on personal matters, including travel and lawyer’s fees, and to pay a fine as well.

There’s much for an intrepid investigative team to look into.

But just now, let’s limit ourselves to summing up Ilhan Omar’s Washington Week in Review.

She’s been accused of being an adulteress by the wife of her lover and “political consultant” Tim Mynett, to whom she has given unusually large sums from her campaign funds. On the floor of the House, she tried to drown out, by shouting “Stop It! Stop It!,” a Congressman trying to be heard – there is no “free speech” as far as Ilhan Omar is concerned — all because he did nothing more than repeat verbatim a crude remark by her ally and fellow Muslim, Rashida Tlaib. Finally, she signed a letter denouncing the Administration for its “economic warfare” against Iran, deploring the very thing that most of us agree has been a smashing success both in curbing Iranian aggression through proxies (Houthis, Hezbollah, Shi’a militias), and in weakening popular support in Iran for the monstrous regime in Tehran. She thus joined in deploring a supposed “humanitarian catastrophe” in Iran because, although that country produces domestically 97% of all the medicines it needs, that remaining 3% was, the letter falsely implied, cannot be obtained except from the U.S. But even if that were true, two months before Omar’s letter was sent, the Treasury had already announced that it was ending all sanctions on medicine for Iran. It was no longer an issue. But what do facts matter when it’s such fun to bash the Administration?

That was Ilhan Omar’s Washington Week In Review. Let’s hope there are not too many more such weeks featuring the deplorable Omar and her cast of characters – those two Somali husbands, one a possible brother, the consultant/ lover who may yet become her third husband – all part of her scandalous entourage. We can’t take too much more of this. Minnesotans, next November, you will be able to right this wrong. Don’t miss the chance. Do your stuff.

First published in Jihad Watch.