How Omar played the Star Tribune
14th August 2025
Power Line.
Granted, not a high bar.
In 2019 we advanced our understanding of the frauds in which Ilhan Omar is mired thanks to the Minnesota campaign finance board investigation and findings against her for penny-ante violations of applicable law. Among other things, we learned as a result of the investigation that Omar had filed joint tax returns in 2015 and 2016 with Ahmed Hirsi, to whom she was not married, while she was still married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. We believe that Elmi is her brother and that the marriage was a sham, which is how Omar treated it. It’s a scandal for the ages, or at least something new under the sun of political scandal.
One of Omar’s Republican colleagues in the state legislature — Steve Drazkowski — had filed complaints initiating the campaign finance board investigation. In an important story dated October 27, 2018 (published the following day, nine days before the election), Omar discussed Drazkowski’s complaints with former Star Tribune reporter Stephen Montemayor. Montemayor’s story appeared in the paper on the penultimate Sunday before the election under the headline “On the edge of making history, Ilhan Omar confronts fresh wave of scrutiny.”