Bombshell Claim: Comer Says Ilhan Omar's Winery Sold Empty Barrels to Investors
Kentucky Rep. James Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has unveiled a bombshell new finding from the committee’s own investigation into Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
Appearing on Fox News this Monday, the Republican lawmaker revealed that a since-shuttered California winery owned by Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, had sold empty wine barrels to investors.
“That winery has, according to the press, been shut down because of fraud,” he said. “They were apparently selling investors barrels of wine to be aged, but there was nothing in the barrels.”
It’s not clear why the winery, one of several companies owned by Mynett, had sold empty barrels of wine in the first place.
The remarks came as Comer spoke to Fox News host Trey Gowdy about ways in which the federal government, which has been running its own investigations into Omar, could obtain a search warrant against her.
“She’s right in the middle of all of the Somali fraud,” Comer said, referencing all the fraud in Minneapolis being perpetrated by the local Somali community.
“With the earmarks that she proposed, they were going to go to groups that were right in the thick of all the Somali fraud, all the Medicaid and welfare fraud,” he added.
“Her sister was involved in some of these frauds, reportedly $20 million,” he continued. “Then you add… that she may have lied on her age when she came to the United States. There are four or five different angles where you could obtain a search warrant.”
In a post published to the social media site X late Monday, hours after Comer’s Fox News appearance, Mynett denied everything, alleging that the empty barrels story from the Republican lawmaker was “an absolute and provable lie.”
@CollinRugg All of this is an absolute and provable lie.
— Tim Mynett (@TimMynett) October 20, 2026
According to Fox News, Mynett’s winery was abruptly shuttered in early April, right around the time that the House Oversight Committee first began investigating Omar’s alleged illicit activities.
The business officially dissolved on April 4, roughly two months after the committee wrote to Mynett to ask how it was that the companies he owned had jumped from being worth only $51,000 in 2023 to up to $30 million in 2024.
Written by Comer, the letter noted that there were “serious public concerns” in the businesses’ spike in value.
“Given that these companies do not publicly list their investors or where their money comes from, this sudden jump in value raises concerns that unknown individuals may be investing to gain influence with your wife,” Comer wrote.
Where do they get these absolute lies from?
— Tim Mynett (@TimMynett) October 20, 2026
As of Tuesday morning, not a single mainstream establishment media outlet outside of Fox News had covered the story presented by Comer.
Some critics noted that Comer appeared to be the original source of the allegation, given that nobody else — including the feds — had thus far mentioned anything about empty barrels from Mynett’s winery.
The irony, critics argued, was that Comer was no different from former FBI Director James Comey, who famously was the original source years ago when he released notes to the press documenting his private interactions and phone calls with President Donald Trump between January and April 2017.
Except instead of leaking incriminating information about a Republican, Comer leaked potentially incriminating info about a Democrat.
Critics say “turnabout’s fair play,” especially in this day and age of cutthroat politics.
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