President Donald Trump this week called for a criminal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar, (D- MN), questioning how the lawmaker’s wealth could balloon to more than $30 million while serving in public office.
“There is no way such wealth could have been accumulated, legally, while being paid the salary of a politician,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. “She should be investigated for Financial and Political Crimes, and that investigation should start, NOW!”
Omar, who is Somalia-born, represents Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District and is already the subject of a House Oversight Committee investigation into her and husband Tim Mynett’s finances.
Republican lawmakers want to know how the couple’s wealth increased so dramatically since Omar, a member of a left-wing group of lawmakers known as “the Squad,” arrived in Congress in 2019.
The Washington Free Beacon, one of the first to report the explosion in Omar and her husband’s wealth, wrote that Mynett’s companies were essentially running on fumes only a couple years ago.
According to the Beacon, a winery Mynett was invested in had just $650 in its bank account in February of 2024. Mynett’s other venture, Rose Lake Capital, was worth no more than $1,000 to Mynett at the end of 2023, and had just $42.44 in its bank accounts in February 2024, according to court documents reported by the outlet.
Their financial turnaround was dramatic. According to Yahoo!News:
In a May 2025 financial disclosure, Omar listed two large assets tied to her husband, whom she married in 2020. One is a winery business valued between $1 million and $5 million, and the other is a venture capital firm valued between $5 million and $25 million. Based on the valuations, Omar and her husband have a net worth between $6 million and $30 million, minus liabilities, such as Omar’s student loan debt of between $15,000 and $50,000 that she disclosed on a 2024 form.
Last year, Omar denied reports that she had struck it rich while in office.
“Since getting elected, there has been a coordinated right-wing disinformation campaign claiming all sorts of wild things, including the ridiculous claim I am worth millions of dollars which is categorically false,” Omar said during an interview with Business Insider last year.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, (R-KY), has said his panel is seeking answers on Omar and Mynett through congressional oversight.
One reason motivating the House probe and Trump’s call for a criminal inquiry may be that Omar’s district has been ground zero for the reportedly billions of dollars in widespread fraud involving federal funding of social services programs to the Somalian population there.
As of Friday, Omar had not responded to the president’s most recent post but seems more focused on the Trump administration’s surge of some 3,000 immigration enforcement agents into Minnesota, largely to Minneapolis.
On Thursday, Omar was posting on X and urging Minnesotans to avoid work, school, and shopping and instead attend an “ICE out of Minnesota” rally.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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