From the mixed-up files of Rep. Ilhan Omar (5)

It has now been a week since the Minnesota campaign finance board released its incendiary findings in the matter of Ilhan Omar’s 2016 campaign for the state house. The Star Tribune has published one story noting the board’s findings that Omar filed joint tax returns in 2014 and 205 with a man to whom she was not married while she was legally married to another man. Over what period of years did Omar do so? The Star Tribune hasn’t asked and Omar isn’t talking, but her refusal to respond to the Star Tribune on this point would be a story all by itself. Indeed, If Omar were a Republican, you can bet it would be.

Minnesota Public Radio has posted a brief review of the campaign finance board file in the case of Ilhan Omar. Is it possible to embarrass the Star Tribune into digging into it? John Hinderaker and I have been debating the question. Today Stephen Montemayor offers a progress report in the Star Tribune’s Morning Hot Dish email newsletter:

We’re examining documents from the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board’s probe into U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s improper expenses from her time as a state lawmaker. The board revealed last week that Omar filed joint tax returns in 2014 and 2015 with her husband before they were legally married. The freshman congresswoman has not made the returns public or personally responded to the Campaign Finance Board’s findings outside of a brief statement from a campaign spokesman. Long-standing questions about Omar’s complicated marriage history have dogged her since 2016.

From Minnesota Public Radio: State officials asked Omar if she knew whether there were amendments filed to her taxes based on the accounting firm’s work. “I don’t think so,” Omar answered [in her unilluminating deposition] before adding that she couldn’t “recall doing any.”

I am thinking you will have to stick with us for the good stuff, such as this quotable quote from Omar crisis manager Ben Goldfarb in the Omar campaign emails produced to the board and filed under docket number 35): “Someone should reach out to talk off the record [with Blois Olson] and shut down [his coverage of Power Line’s initial post on Omar] as we do with the Strib [i.e., the Star Tribune]” (page 22).

FOR THE BACKGROUND TO THIS SHORT SERIES, see “From the mixed-up files of Rep. Ilhan Omar.”

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