Back in 2019, a Minnesota Republican state lawmaker walked up to Democratic Rep. Angie Craig with documented evidence of campaign finance violations against Rep. Ilhan Omar and asked her to do something about it. Craig’s response was basically: good luck, here’s the website.
Then-state Rep. Steve Drazkowski had approached Craig after Minnesota’s Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board officially confirmed that Omar improperly used campaign funds for personal tax-related services and travel. The board’s findings, issued June 6, 2019, were not rumors or political attacks. They were official state findings. Drazkowski wanted a congressional ethics investigation opened. Craig sent him a letter explaining how members of the public file their own complaints.
Nothing says “I’ve got your back, constituent” quite like a form letter. Drazkowski had written to Craig directly: “Representative Craig, I am your constituent. In that capacity, I formally request that you immediately forward the attached material and open an ethics investigation in the United States House of Representatives regarding actions taken by Rep. Ilhan Omar.” Craig wrote back explaining what the Office of Congressional Ethics does and how Ilhan Omar ethics investigation works for members of the public who want to file allegations. She did not announce a referral.
The state board’s findings were specific. Omar had improperly used $1,500 in campaign funds to pay for personal tax-related services involving joint tax returns she filed with Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in 2014 and 2015. The board also required her to repay campaign funds used for travel to Boston, New York, and Washington, D.C. Drazkowski said he first got suspicious when he noticed Omar hadn’t filed a required statement of economic interest. She submitted it only after learning his complaint had triggered an investigation. How convenient.
There’s a wrinkle in the tax filing story worth mentioning. Omar filed joint returns with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015, but she was not legally married to him at the time. She had legally married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in February 2009, and their divorce wasn’t finalized until December 2017. In her divorce filings, Omar stated she had not been in contact with Elmi since 2011. But since-deleted photos on social media tell a different story. AlphaNewsMN reported on an Instagram photo posted by Elmi on June 12, 2012, the day after Omar gave birth to her third child, showing Elmi holding the newborn and referring to the baby girl as his “niece.”
After Craig passed the buck, Drazkowski went ahead and filed his own complaint with the House Ethics Committee and shared it with the OCE. His complaint declared: “The United States of America is a nation of law and order. No one is above the law, and our elected officials must always be held accountable.” He got no meaningful response there either. So he took everything to the FBI’s Minneapolis office. “I went to the FBI and unloaded all the information I had to them, including names and phone numbers of people,” he said. Federal investigators also gave him nothing substantive in return.
So to recap: state investigators confirmed violations, a constituent handed documented evidence to his Democratic congresswoman, she pointed him to the public complaint form, he filed his own complaint, got nowhere, then drove to the FBI, and still got nowhere. A Democrat protecting a Democrat while government offices shrugged in unison. You truly could not design a more perfect Washington experience if you tried.
