In addition to scrutiny from the feds, Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband’s vineyard may land the embattled energy couple in scorching water with imams too.
Political marketing consultant Tim Mynett transformed to Islam to marry Omar, a practising Muslim — however promoting booze is strictly banned in Islamic legislation, which considers something to do with alcohol sinful — or “haram.”
“I guarantee you that they obtained married in accordance with Islam and the legislation, and Ilhan’s husband transformed to Islam,” a spokesperson for Omar’s workplace instructed BBC Somalia on the time of the 2020 wedding ceremony.
It was Mynett’s California-based wine firm eStCru, collectively together with his different allegedly shady enterprise ventures, that helped propel the couple’s price to as much as $30 million and attracted a probe by the Home Oversight Committee and the Division of Justice.
Omar claimed the wine biz was price between $1 million and $5 million in her Could 2025 monetary disclosure, which lined the 2024 calendar yr.
However by that time, the enterprise had gone belly-up for greater than a yr, including to the thriller of why she would have positioned such a excessive worth on it within the first place.
“We’re not consultants in Islamic legislation — however we’re fairly positive scamming the American individuals for a dwelling violates each faith,” slammed Republican Nationwide Committee Press Secretary Kiersten Pels.
eStCru wasn’t a conventional brick and mortar vineyard, however somewhat only a label that subcontracted producers all through the West Coast to bottle wines for them.
The enterprise was brief lived — it solely bought a handful of wines between 2020 and 2023 — together with a Malbec known as “The Satan’s Lie;” a Cabernet Sauvignon named “Blockchain;” and a crimson mix “Overt,” described by drinkers as “flimsy” and “tart.”
The corporate was half of a bigger “collective” promoting wines out of a Santa Rosa cupboard space known as Punchdown, whose boss instructed The Put up Mynett’s was one among greater than 20 labels it housed on the time.
eStCru’s brief existence was marked by scandal — regardless of being named “scorching model of the yr” in 2022. By early 2023, its winemakers mentioned that they had stopped getting paid, and the model was now not promoting on social media.
By that fall, Mynett and his enterprise companion Will Hailer, two Democratic operatives who had met working for now Minnesota Legal professional Basic Keith Ellison, had been sued by one among their buyers.
The investor, a DC restaurateur, claimed he’d been swindled into plunging $300,000 into the enterprise in 2021 and that the pair “fraudulently misrepresented” eStCru was a official firm.
They settled out of courtroom, information present. By early 2024, eStCru reportedly solely had $650 within the financial institution, based on courtroom paperwork. In November 2024, the web site went darkish.
It’s not clear why in spite of everything of this failure Omar positioned the enterprise’ worth within the seven figures. In her monetary disclosure masking the earlier yr of 2023, when eStCru was at the least alive, she solely put its worth between $15,000 and $50,000 — considerably decrease.
When reached for remark by The Put up, an organization spokesperson mentioned the vineyard is useless.
“Whereas studies have made it seem to be eStCru was a bodily vineyard, it wasn’t. It was a direct-to-consumer wine firm that’s now not operational and for which Mr. Mynett gained’t present revenue derived in a 2025 assertion,” they mentioned.
The revelations include the Congresswoman underneath fireplace with questions swirling about what the Somali-born politician knew in regards to the $9 billion Minnesota fraud scandal involving the Somali group.
As for failing to observe spiritual strictures, this isn’t new territory for the couple.
Mynett’s ex-wife, DC Division of Corrections medical director Beth Mynett, suspected the pair of getting an affair when the “Squad” member employed Mynett to work on her first Congressional election marketing campaign as early as 2018 — allegations Omar and Mynett have denied.
In 2019, Mynett was pictured carrying a number of six packs of Stella Artois beer to Omar’s DC pad and choosing up the congresswoman in his blue Mustang whereas puffing on a cigarette – additionally “haram” in Islamic legislation.
Adultery is punishable by stoning in Islamic legislation.
“She is a figurehead for us, essentially the most well-known Somali in America and he or she has embarrassed us,” one area people chief complained to the Each day Mail relating to the adultery accusations.
“I don’t know what she is considering.”
