Ilhan Omar. NBC/AP.
Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar is accused of having an affair with one of her consultants according to new divorce filings. NBC News. The DC consultant, Tim Mynett, confessed to his wife Beth that he was in love with Omar last April. Mynett worked for the E-Street Group, a political consulting firm that had worked with Omar for her election campaign. Omar had paid the group over $200,000. Ilhan Omar has not commented on the accusations.
The New York Post broke the story and has more in depth reporting.
My Comment:
Under normal circumstances this would be a huge deal but the news media is pretty much ignoring this story. NBC, The Daily Mail and Buzzfeed are the only non-conservative outlets covering this story so far that I have seen and it doesn't appear to be trending on Twitter or showing up on Google News without searching for it. It seems pretty clear that people are covering for Ilhan Omar.
Of course that's not the first time that has happened. Rumors have long swirled around her first marriage. People have accused her of marrying her own brother for immigration purposes. Those allegations haven't really been investigated fully, but that's because the media doesn't want one of their progressive "Squad" darlings damaged in anyway.
Is the affair story even true? Right now we only have the court filings to go on but those court filing are explosive. And there are several incidents where Omar was spotted with Tim Mynett in social situations, which is circumstantial evidence at best. My gut says it is true though, but time will tell.
If true I think it paints Omar in a very negative light. Cheating on your husband with a married man is a pretty terrible thing to do. Causing that marriage to break up and cause a messy divorce where child custody is involved is even worse.
I also think it makes Democrats and Omar look pretty hypocritical. They have always trashed male politicians when they have had affairs and they probably should do the same thing to Ilhan Omar as well, but they aren't so far. Omar's actions are also forbidden by her Islamic faith and according to her religion she should be punished for her actions, if the allegations are true.
Assuming the allegations are true, should Omar resign? I'm not sure. She did funnel a bunch of campaign money to someone she had an affair with, but I don't know if that's a crime or even unethical. If it is than yes, she should resign.
But just based on the affair itself? I don't think so. I have said in the past that people shouldn't resign from elected offices based on affairs. I'm going to stay morally consistent and say that Omar shouldn't resign either. She's a bad person and should resign for dozens of other reasons but having an affair isn't one of them.
But should the people in her district re-elect her in 2020? Well, obviously no, but not because of this. I will say that I think her chances went down quite a bit. Her Somali constituents probably won't approve of infidelity and I am guessing she won't win reelection.
There are some race and gender things going on here that are fairly unusual as well. Tim Mynett and his wife are both white and Beth Mynett is much older than Tim. Beth is 55 years old while Tim is 38 and Ilhan Omar is 37. The age discrepancy probably predicted the affair fairly well, but probably didn't predict an affair with Ilhan Omar. Also, white male/black female relationships seem fairly rare. Perhaps Mynett just likes unconventional relationships?
The biggest loser in this whole thing has to be the Mynett's 13 year old son. His parents are national news and he's now a footnote in the saga of one of America's most hated politicians. Going through a parents divorce is hard enough when it isn't national news. Destroying this boys life is probably the worst aspect of this story.
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