House Oversight Chairman James Comer says a California winery co-owned by Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband shut down amid fraud claims, the same stake that powered a massive leap on her financial disclosures.
Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., told Fox News over the weekend that federal investigators already have multiple paths that could support search warrants in the growing scrutiny of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and that a winery tied to her husband sits at the center of the money questions.
Fox News reported Comer’s comments on “Sunday Night in America,” where he linked Omar’s financial disclosure forms, the rapid rise in reported assets, and the April shutdown of the California winery eStCru co-owned by her husband, Tim Mynett.
Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant at Omar’s Washington, D.C., home earlier this month. That operation has been tied to allegations that Omar and her father misrepresented her age to obtain American citizenship more easily.
Comer made clear the money trail is not a side issue.
"I can tell you from our initial investigation of Omar and her financial disclosure form that there are multiple fronts where you could get a search warrant issued."
He zeroed in on the winery as the main driver behind a $25 million listing on Omar’s financial disclosure form and said press accounts show the business has already been closed because of fraud.
"First of all, not only was there a huge discrepancy in the financial disclosure form, there was the winery that was the big base of her $25 million listing on her financial disclosure form. That winery has, according to the press, been shut down because of fraud."
In a February letter to Mynett, Comer spelled out the numbers that raised red flags. Omar’s 2023 financial disclosure listed a stake in eStCru worth between $15,001 and $50,000. The following year’s form listed the same stake as worth between $1,000,001 and $5,000,000.
Comer wrote that the jump created serious public concerns about how the businesses increased so dramatically in value only a year after reporting very limited assets. The letter went out just weeks before the winery closed.
eStCru was founded in 2020 by Mynett and a business partner and was named one of Wine Business’s “Hot Brands of 2022.” Comer has described the venture as having sold empty barrels to investors under the guise of wine to be aged. The winery shut down in April amid the congressional scrutiny of Omar’s finances.
That closure is the same pattern covered when Comer described the Omar-linked winery shutdown as probes continued to widen.
Mid-April, Omar told The Wall Street Journal that she and her husband have less than $100,000 combined. She had previously described the disclosure discrepancy as an accidental accounting error. She and her allies have denied wrongdoing and called the investigation a partisan hit job.
Lawyers for Mynett and his business partner, identified as Will, rejected any claim of intentional misconduct. In a statement carried by the Minnesota Reformer, they said any suggestion that Will or Tim deliberately defrauded investors or consciously conspired to rip people off would be false and defamatory.
"Any suggestion that Will or Tim deliberately defrauded investors or otherwise consciously conspired to rip people off would be false and defamatory."
Fox News Digital also sought comment from Rose Lake Capital, another venture linked to Mynett and his partner.
House Oversight had already moved the spouse-related matter. A committee spokesperson said the panel referred the investigation into Omar’s spouse months ago to the House Ethics Committee and encouraged that bipartisan panel to do its job and review the concerning allegations. Ethics has not yet taken up the case.
Those Oversight statements track with earlier reporting that the House Oversight chair flagged the husband’s winery closure amid fraud claims.
The financial questions are landing alongside a separate federal probe into Omar’s path to U.S. citizenship. Details of the disclosure problems resurfaced in recent days as that citizenship investigation advanced. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., has said Omar should be deported if the allegations prove true.
Related pressure has included calls covered when Comer urged release of Omar immigration evidence and pushed for an expulsion vote.
Grand jury activity has also reached Omar’s relatives in the immigration fraud investigation, a track examined in coverage of subpoenas hitting Omar family members.
No arrests or charges from the D.C. search or the winery matter are described in the current reporting. What is on the record is a federal search of a sitting member’s home, a referred Ethics matter that has not moved, disclosure forms that leapt from a modest winery stake to a multi-million-dollar one, and a business that closed after Comer put the valuation spike in writing.
Background on the immigration side of the case has also included reporting that prosecutors hold DNA evidence in the alleged marriage scheme tied to Omar.
Taxpayers and lawful residents are left watching the same pattern: rapid wealth claims on official forms, a shuttered business under fraud allegations, a home search by federal agents, and an Ethics Committee that still has not opened the file referred to it months ago.
When disclosure numbers explode, a winery folds under fraud claims, and federal agents hit a member’s door, the public is owed answers, not delay.
