From the mixed-up files of Rep. Ilhan Omar (7)

It is now 10 days since Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Ilhan Omar was found to have filed joint tax returns with a man to whom she was not married — while she was married to another man. Although the Star Tribune is proud of its editorial criticizing Omar, the paper has yet to run a single follow-up story on Omar’s misconduct.

We know Omar filed the illegal returns for tax years 2014 and 2015 and had them redone at the urging of her “crisis team” as it dealt with the “crisis” created by Power Line. There is more to the story than meets the eye at first glance. The tax returns show Omar treating her legal marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (assuming he is not her brother) as a sham. Over what period of years did Omar file (illegal) joint tax returns with then “cultural” husband Ahmed Hirsi before she married him last year? Did she file joint returns with Hirsi during the entire period of her marriage to Elmi (2009-2017)?

The Star Tribune isn’t asking and Omar isn’t talking. Tug at any thread of this story and the original “crisis” seems to reappear. The cover stories for Omar’s dishonest conduct threaten to unravel. Is anyone tugging?

MPR reporter Brian Bakst has at least lifted a finger to do a little tugging. He has a brief if lame story that draws on the state campaign finance board file here. In the tweet below Bakst notes that he sought comment from Omar “crisis committee” member Michael Howard, now a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Bakst reports that Howard “declined to talk about what he knew of…the Omar tax situation.”

When nobody is talking about nothing, so to speak, it frequently acts as an incentive for reporters to get to the bottom of the story. Omar is a national figure and this is a big story, but the usual rules seem not to apply.

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

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