(This post may contain disputed claims. We make no assertions as to the validity of the information presented by our Opinion Columnist. We are an opinion blog, not a traditional news outlet, and this post should be treated as such. Enjoy.)Rep. Ilhan Omar has had the worst week of her short political career, and it just heated up once again. The controversial Congresswoman is facing multiple scandals including tax fraud, and we now have proof her crisis team is trying to stop the press from reporting her other “dirty deeds.” That’s why all Americans need to see this.
You know Ilhan Omar is having a very rough week when she is refusing to talk. And now her own hometown newspaper, the Minnesota Star Tribune, has been caught in a pickle. According to leaked emails, Omar has gotten the Star Tribune to “shut down” stories on her dirty deeds.
Blois Olsen is the crisis manager who leaked Omar’s scandalous emails. In them, we find another crisis manager, Ben Goldfarb, who is also a loyalist to the Minnesota Congresswoman, asking if anyone on Omar’s team would reach out to him to shut down press reports about Omar’s tax fraud situation.
Goldfarb also drops the bomb that the Omar campaign was successful at shutting down bad press by the largest newspaper in Minnesota, the Star Tribune.
“My God. Props to @bloisolson for sharing. From @IlhanMN’s crisis manager Ben Goldfarb: “Does anyone in the team have a relationship with Blois? Someone should probably reach out to talk off the record and shut it down with him AS WE DO WITH THE STRIB [Minnesota Star Tribune]” tweeted Nick Solheim with links to the leaked emails.
But that’s not all.
My God. Props to @bloisolson for sharing.
From @IlhanMN’s crisis manager Ben Goldfarb:
“Does anyone in the team have a relationship with Blois? Someone should probably reach out to talk off the record and shut it down with him AS WE DO WITH THE STRIB” [emphasis added]
THREAD pic.twitter.com/cFx49KxZCm
— Nick Solheim (@NickSSolheim) June 13, 2019
3. @IlhanMN's campaign staff is SO unwilling to go on the record with reputable journalists (Can't speak more highly of @bloisolson) that they resort to finding a fixer who has a "relationship" with Blois to "shut down" the story.
There's got to be something nefarious here.
— Nick Solheim (@NickSSolheim) June 13, 2019
In one email written by Omar’s right-hand woman Jean Heyer dated August 16, 2016, she is asking Omar’s divorce attorney how to handle questions that the Congresswoman was “married to her brother.”
Heyer writes how she wants Omar to handle it: “I have been asked personal questions about my life: I have been asked whether I am married to my brother. The answer to the question is no, I am not.”
Then, Heyer goes on to write she wants to combat this “smear campaign” by having Omar play the race and woman card. Heyer suggests Omar should say: “It matters I am a woman. It matters I am a Somali-American woman. It matters I am a Muslim and immigrant woman.”
In another, her crisis manager Ben Goldfarb is attempting to shut down a story on Powerline, which was just cited by Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. The main theme is Omar’s right-hand woman and campaign manager Jean Heyer, along with Ben Goldfarb, are very concerned about the story of Omar’s past marriage to her brother Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
Now, here’s where it gets very interesting.
On August 12, 2016, Powerline writes the story about Omar’s alleged marriage to her brother. For that article, the reporter writes an email to Omar’s campaign staff asking for a comment. He follows that up with a voice message:
I left a voicemail message for you this morning…I write for the website Power Line (powerlineblog.com). This is to request a comment by the close of business today on the information posted on Somalispot last week indicating that Ilhan Omar was married to her brother in 2009 following her marriage to Ahmed Aden (Hirsi) in 2002.
I assume you are familiar with the post. I am inserting the URL to the Google cache of it below my contact information.
I have related questions. Why did she marry her brother? Was the marriage to her first husband legally dissolved? If so, when?
Thank you for your courtesies.
Then, you have Heyer write that email to Omar’s divorce attorney on August 16, 2016. That caused Heyer to write an email to Powerline‘s reporter Scott Johnson, along with a criminal defense attorney on behalf of Omar.
Johnson writes “This afternoon I received the following email message from Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl on behalf of Omar”:
Dear Mr. Johnson:
I have been contacted by the Ilhan Omar campaign. Their response to your email from this morning is as follows:
“There are people who do not want an East African, Muslim woman elected to office and who will follow Donald Trump’s playbook to prevent it. Ilhan Omar’s campaign sees your superfluous contentions as one more in a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy.
Ilhan Omar’s campaign will not be distracted by negative forces and will continue to focus its energy on creating positive engagement with community members to make the district and state more prosperous and equitable for everyone.”
If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please direct them to me in writing so we have a record of any further communications.
Sincerely,
Jean Brandl
Later that week, Omar issued a statement decrying the “Trump-style misogyny, racism, anti-immigration rhetoric and Islamophobic division” allegedly motivating questions about her marital status.
“Omar herself refused then and since to answer questions about her marital history or even who Elmi is if not her brother,” reports Powerline.
These serious allegations were then downplayed in the Minnesota Star Tribune: “Her campaign flatly denied that Elmi is her brother. It would only say that she and Ahmed Hirsi, who is pictured in campaign literature and is the father of their three children, are together and raising a family. The Star Tribune could not find records in Minnesota showing that the two ever married.”
At the time of Omar’s election in 2016, she was not legally married to Ahmed Hirsi because she was still legally married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, reports the Washington Examiner.
“Omar did not file for divorce from Elmi until 2017, the year after she was elected to the Minnesota House. On Dec. 4, 2017, they legally divorced, and on Jan. 5, 2018, Omar and Hirsi legally married.”
She then filed for divorce from Elmi and wed Hirsi. And that’s how she was caught in tax fraud.
Omar used some of her campaign funds to pay her divorce attorney. Omar recorded a $2,250 campaign finance disbursement to Kjellberg Law Offices on November 20, 2016. Strangely, Carla Kjellberg is also part of the leaked emails. Her name appears on the “CC” line meaning she was also sent those emails.
“Allegations that she married her brother and is legally married to two people are categorically ridiculous and false,” campaign spokesman Ben Goldfarb said after Omar won the election in 2016.
Michelle Malkin, the highly-respected journalist also is questioning Omar’s past marital status based on evidence uncovered by Powerline, David North of the Center for Immigration Studies, Alpha News reporter Preya Samsundar, and PJMedia.com reporter David Steinberg.
Now that we have these leaked emails, it looks like these allegations are once again heating up. We must all keep an open mind to these charges. Everyone in America is deemed innocent until found guilty.
