Rep. James Comer says the California winery co-owned by Ilhan Omar’s husband was shuttered over fraud claims, intensifying questions about her financial disclosures.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer told Fox News over the weekend that a California winery tied to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband shut down in April after fraud claims surfaced, and he tied the collapse to sharp swings in the Minnesota Democrat’s financial disclosure forms.
Fox News reported Comer’s remarks on “Sunday Night in America,” where the Kentucky Republican described the winery as the core of a much larger net-worth picture and said his panel’s early review already pointed to several avenues that could support search warrants.
The business, eStCru, was founded in 2020 by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, and a business partner. It was based in California and had been named one of Wine Business’s “Hot Brands of 2022” before closing this April under congressional scrutiny of Omar’s finances.
Comer said the operation had been selling empty barrels to investors under the guise of wine that would be aged. He framed the shutdown as part of a broader pattern of disclosure problems, a federal search at Omar’s Washington, D.C., home, and an Oversight referral that still sits with the House Ethics Committee.
Comer zeroed in on Omar’s financial disclosure forms. He said the winery sat at the center of a $25 million listing on her paperwork and that the reported value of her stake moved dramatically from one year to the next.
In a February letter to Mynett, Comer noted that Omar’s 2023 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 swing raised serious public concerns about how the businesses increased so dramatically in value only a year after reporting very limited assets. He said the letter went out just weeks before the winery closed.
On air, Comer put the problem in plain terms.
Rep. James Comer said:
"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."
He added that the initial investigation of Omar and her disclosure form already showed multiple fronts where a search warrant could be issued.
Rep. James Comer said:
"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."
Omar had previously chalked the discrepancy up to an accidental accounting error. In mid-April she told The Wall Street Journal that she and her husband have less than $100,000 combined. She and her allies denied wrongdoing and cast the probe as a partisan hit job.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a search warrant at Omar’s Washington, D.C., home. Reporting linked the operation to allegations that she and her father misrepresented the congresswoman’s age to more easily obtain American citizenship, part of a wider federal look at her citizenship status.
Federal investigators have also subpoenaed relatives in connection with the matter. No charges or arrests are described in the available record on these points, but the search landed while Oversight was already pressing the financial side of the story.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, a fellow Minnesotan, has said Omar should face jail and deportation if citizenship fraud is proven, a demand that tracks with wider Republican pressure over the same set of allegations.
That citizenship fight has run on a parallel track, with Emmer calling for jail time if the fraud claims hold up under investigation.
Mynett has also been tied publicly to the scene of the HSI activity, and Fox News Digital reached out to Rose Lake Capital, another venture linked to Mynett and his partner, for comment on Comer’s latest remarks.
Attorneys for Mynett and his business partner pushed back hard on any suggestion of a conscious scheme to cheat investors. In a statement to the Minnesota Reformer, they rejected the fraud framing outright.
Lawyers for Tim Mynett and his partner said:
"Any suggestion that Will or Tim deliberately defrauded investors or otherwise consciously conspired to rip people off would be false and defamatory."
The partner is identified in that statement only as Will. The lawyers’ denial does not erase the shutdown, the disclosure jump, or the congressional letter that flagged the valuation spike before the business closed.
Separate immigration scrutiny has kept pace, including reporting on how DHS leadership has described family-marriage allegations that could carry deportation consequences if proven.
A House Oversight Committee spokesperson said the panel referred the investigation into Omar’s spouse to the House Ethics Committee months ago and urged the bipartisan panel to review the concerning allegations. Ethics is charged with looking at accusations of impropriety by lawmakers and recommending punishments when warranted.
The Ethics Committee has not yet taken up Omar’s case. That leaves the referral sitting while Comer keeps the financial disclosures, the winery collapse, and the search-warrant landscape in public view.
Border officials have likewise kept the citizenship file active, with the border czar warning she could lose citizenship if fraud is established.
Comer’s February letter to Mynett remains one of the clearest paper trails. It documented the leap from a five-figure stake to a multimillion-dollar one, asked how the businesses grew so fast, and arrived shortly before eStCru shut its doors.
Ongoing criminal attention to the immigration side has also been acknowledged at the federal level, including confirmation of an active probe into alleged immigration fraud tied to the congresswoman.
Omar still holds her seat representing Minnesota. The winery is closed. The disclosure numbers are on the record. The D.C. search happened. Ethics has the referral and has not moved.
Taxpayers and voters get to watch whether the committees and federal investigators finish the job the disclosures and the shutdown already started.
