It was just a mistake that anyone could have made. There was definitely nothing criminal here. Accounting errors are all the rage these days. Apparently, the financial report that Ilhan Omar signed under penalties of perjury that she and her husband (that’s the one that is not her brother) was worth upwards of $30 million was off by a little. At least, so says the Wall Street Journal.
Hey, we have all done it. While balancing our checkbook, we made a simple math error. No big deal. We noticed the discrepancy with our bank statement and we tracked down the addition or subtraction error.
This is what must have happened with Omar. The accountant that prepared the forms that she submitted to the federal government just misplaced a zero somewhere. This resulted in misstating $95,000 as $30 million. Just an oops, my bad type of thing. And, of course, Omar was too busy slandering Israel, Trump, the GOP, etc. to notice the small difference in values.
Of course, the explosion of wealth listed on federal financial disclosure forms raised a few eyebrows. This was especially true since it coincided with a massive, $9 billion federal investigation into welfare fraud in Omar’s Minnesota district. The House Oversight Committee, led by Chairman James Comer, began asking questions. “There are a lot of questions as to how her husband accumulated so much wealth over the past two years,” Comer noted. “It’s not possible.”
Of course, with all the fraud investigations going on, Omar’s office scrambled to deflect attention from the potential inquiries into at her financial dealings. Omar’s spokesperson Jacklyn Rogers:
“The amended disclosure confirms what we’ve said all along: The congresswoman is not a millionaire. The congresswoman amended her disclosures voluntarily as soon as the discrepancy was identified.”
Discrepancy? Is that what they are calling the difference between $95,000 and $30 million? Just how did this happen? Jeff Childers notes:
According to Omar’s aides, she did review her financial disclosure form before she signed it under oath and filed it, but the fact that her net worth had suddenly increased by 3,500% “didn’t jump off the page for her.” In other words, she’s stupid, not criminal.
Let’s notice how this is working. It was her accountant’s fault. That accountant simply put the wrong valuations down for a winery and a capital venture firm. One has to ask where did those numbers come from?
Obviously there is good news here. This amended filing demonstrates that Omar is not a multimillionaire deriving obscene profits while representing a district that is the spotlight of massive fraud investigations. Right!
I think this mistake is actually a felony. It was apparently done to foster the appearance of wealth similar to what was being enjoyed by her constituency in the massive fraud going on there. That would make it a federal election crime at least under the rules used by Alvin Bragg.