In May Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was posing as a legal scholar and citing statutes that do not exist. She implied that President Trump must turn over his tax returns because the law requires it. Now that there are questions about Rep. Omar’s taxes, she won’t turn them over.
From Clarion:
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., already has stirred up tempests in Washington several times with her anti-Semitism.
Now she’s demanding that President Trump be held to a law that doesn’t exist.
It’s the latest front in the Democrats’ war on the Republican president following their now debunked Russia collusion claims.
Democrats in Congress now are targeting Trump’s family, and his private and personal interests before he became president.
Congress, for example is demanding copies of Trump’s tax returns, including those of his businesses before he was elected.
The president has rejected the demands [as they are being made solely to harras him and his family].
The hypocritical Omar refuses to do what she demands of Trump.
From a woman who married her brother and has some obvious fraudulent filing issues, I suppose going on offense is the best she can muster.
She surely can’t defend her own case, so she is simply ignoring it.
Perhaps she won’t provide her returns because she filed some funky returns caused by her strange marriage history:
- Early 2000s: Omar and Ahmed Hirsi had two children but never married
- 2009: Omar legally married another man, Ahmed Elmi (Her brother)
- 2011: Omar and Elmi obtained a faith-based divorce, but no legal divorce
- 2012: Omar reconciles with Hirsi and the couple had a third child
- 2014, 2015: Omar and Hirsi file joint married returns (but she was still legally married to her brother)
- 2016: Omar’s attorney and accountants find “something needs to be corrected” in Omar’s filings
- 2017: Omar files for divorce from Elmi
- 2018: Omar legally marries Hirsi (NOW they can file joint returns)
The Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board said Thursday that Omar and her husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, filed joint tax returns for 2014 and 2015. Which was before they were actually married and while Omar was legally wed to her brother While some states allow for joint filing for “common law” marriages, Minnesota does not, and filing joint tax returns with someone who is not your legal spouse is against both federal and state law.
The AP reports that “Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was found by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board … to have committed several campaign finance violations.” The violations had to do with her campaign paying legal expenses related to her personal tax returns and also reimbursing her for out-of-state travel that was found to be unrelated to her state legislative duties.
Moreover:
The board’s report also noted that Omar and Ahmed Hirsi, her current husband, “filed joint tax returns for 2014 and 2015.” That could add fuel to persistent allegations that Omar had been married to two men at the same time — one of whom, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, City Journal noted in 2016, was rumored (though never proven) to be her brother.
The AP reports that it asked for Omar’s tax returns but received no response.
As for President Trump, he hasn’t turned over his tax returns because they are under IRS audit. Trump has stated often that he won’t release his tax returns until the IRS audits of his tax returns were over. While there is no law preventing anyone from releasing their tax returns while under audit, after consulting a few CPAs I learned that any CPA or Tax Attorney who allows a client release his tax returns while under audit should lose their license to practice (whether or not the years released are the same one being audited).
When someone as wealthy as President Trump is audited, there is likely a team of people at the IRS going through the audited years’ returns looking for something to nail the taxpayer with. But if that same wealthy taxpayer releases tax returns those IRS auditors are joined by the opposition party, newspapers, magazines, tv networks, bloggers, etc. all looking for the slightest mistake, If the media finds an error in a year the IRS isn’t auditing, the tax agency can add that year’s return to the audit.
Also, keep in mind the fact someone’s return is being audited doesn’t mean the IRS has found something. Certain red flags make IRS audits more likely. For example, if someone claims to have a home office, they are more likely to be audited, not because that taxpayer’s claim is illegitimate but because many people file false claims of a home office. And as explained in the example given above, audits of wealthy people with diverse holdings are very complicated and may take a long time.
President Trump has a legitimate excuse not to release his tax returns, as for Rep. Omar her refusal to show her taxes smells a lot like obstruction of justice.
Parts of this post were first seen at DC Clothesline
