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The Congresswoman, the Winery, and the Missing Millions

(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The smile gave it away. A tight, sarcastic smile, the kind you wear when you’ve decided the question isn’t worth answering and the questioner isn’t worth respecting.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar flashed it Tuesday when a Lindell TV reporter asked her, politely enough, about the tens of millions of dollars that appear to have wandered off her financial disclosure form.

“I think you’re stupid for asking me anything,” she said. “I don’t want to tell you jack s—. How about that? Have a good day.”

Have a good day. The American cousin of good luck with that.

Here is what she doesn’t want to explain. In May of last year, Omar and her husband, Tim Mynett, told the public their assets were worth somewhere between $6 million and $30 million. Last week, an amended filing reported by the Wall Street Journal put the number between $18,004 and $95,000.

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Not a rounding error. Not a typo. A canyon.

Omar says the original was riddled with accounting mistakes. Perhaps it was. Accounting is hard. But the numbers that got rounded down were the ones attached to her husband’s businesses, Rose Lake Capital, a D.C. venture firm once valued on the form at $5 million to $25 million, and a Santa Rosa winery listed at $1 million to $5 million.

The Washington Free Beacon noted in September that Omar’s net worth had grown by as much as 3,500 percent in 2024, based on the filing she now disavows.

So the question is not impolite. It is not “gotcha.” It is the question any constituent would ask. How does a member of Congress file a disclosure off by tens of millions of dollars, and then grow irritated that anyone noticed?

The old rule in Washington used to be that when you got caught, you explained. You sat down, you took the questions, you ate the bad week. The new rule, apparently, is that you curse at the reporter and walk away smiling.

The voters of Minnesota’s Fifth District deserve better than a shrug and a smirk. They deserve an answer. Whether the original number was wrong or the new one is, someone ought to show the math.

Have a good day, indeed.

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