“It should not be allowed,” said attorney Richard W. Painter, who served as chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House. It should be noted that Painter is now a huge anti-Trumper and even ran as a Dem for the Senate in Minnesota in 2018.
He is no friend to the GOP so if he is saying this you know this is bad. “I think it’s a horrible idea to allow it, given the amount of money that goes into these campaigns from special interests,” he added. “We already have enough problems with gifts to campaigns as a quid pro quo for political action,” he said.
From The New York Post:
Rep. Ilhan Omar has continued quietly funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to her new husband’s consulting film, including a $189,000 windfall in March — just weeks after they announced they had tied the knot, campaign data shows.
The payments between the Minneapolis Democratic congresswoman and Tim Mynett prompted at least one ethics complaint in 2019 after The Post first revealed allegations — made by Mynett’s then-wife in her divorce filing — that Omar was having an affair with the member of her political consulting team, who was at the time married to another woman. Omar was married to her second husband at the time.
But that doesn’t appear to have stopped the now-married couple, with Mynett’s E Street Group collecting $292,814.99 from his wife’s campaign this year for digital advertising, fundraising consulting and research services, according to the Federal Election Commission filings.
In total, Mynett has received a whopping $878,930.65 from Omar’s campaign since he began working for her in 2018, raising eyebrows among watchdogs and political law experts who say the practice is rife with cronyism.
The majority of those payments were made after the Somali-born lawmaker’s victory in the solidly Democratic district in the November 2018 midterm elections.
From Fox News:
A Virginia-based conservative group called the National Legal and Policy Center filed a complaint against Omar last year, after it was disclosed that Omar and Mynett were lovers. The group sought an FEC investigation.
If the FEC does investigate, Omar and Mynett will have to prove that Omar is paying market-based rates for E Street Group’s services, without the prices being inflated “to fluff up their income,” Washington-based political lawyer Cleta Mitchell told the Post.
Omar claimed on Twitter in March that she and Mynett received an OK from federal authorities to continue their business relationship.
“We consulted with a top FEC campaign attorney to ensure there were no possible legal issues with our relationship. We were told this is not uncommon and that no, there weren’t,” Omar wrote.
