Ilhan Omar’s Family Got Filthy Rich With Phantom Non-Existent Winery
Questions were raised on-air about a winery listed in Rep. Ilhan Omar’s financial disclosure after commentator Carl Higbie highlighted what he described as a dramatic increase in the asset’s reported value and the apparent disappearance of the business’s online footprint.
Higbie pointed to Omar’s 2023 financial disclosure, saying the winery was initially listed at a modest value before being reported at a substantially higher valuation the following year.
“Another major asset she listed in her financial disclosure is this winery,” Higbie said.
“Okay, that was in 2023 that was worth, according to Ilhan Omar’s own financial disclosure form, between 15,050 $1,000 put on her financial affidavit from a year later, that same winery was listed at a value of between one and $5 million.”
Higbie questioned how such a valuation change could occur in a short period of time and raised doubts about the business’s existence, noting that online references to the winery had reportedly vanished.
“It gets weirder,” Higbie said.
“Up until yesterday, Benny Johnson was able to find their supposed inventory bottles and all the things they had, their office location and a bunch of other information on the business. But as of today, those sites are totally shut down, and any mention of their website has been wiped off the internet.”
He said efforts to locate archived versions of the business online were unsuccessful.
“I’m talking gone the way back machine, all these other crafty little archive sites. Everything is gone, like deleted the root service,” Higbie said.
“Which is weird that a company that boasted an award winning wine, the quote, double gold winner in 2022 San Fran chronicle competition with a corporate value of up to $5 million dollars would just vanish into thin air.”
Higbie questioned whether such growth was plausible under normal business conditions.
“Is it possible for this to be a functioning business and have absolutely no footprint wiped from the internet, go from 1,000 what net worth, to 5 million in less than a year?” he asked.
John Jordan responded by outlining broader conditions in the wine industry and said the scenario described by Higbie did not align with current market realities.
“Well, no other winery on Earth’s done that,” Jordan said. “Anybody knows anything about this knows that the wine industry is under enormous pressure.”
Jordan said wineries across the country have been closing amid declining consumption and economic pressures. “There’s people pulling up vineyards and closing wineries, including some very well known ones,” he said.
“People are drinking less wine. The economy has weighed on that in favor of cheaper alcohol options.”
Jordan also said a legitimate winery would be required to appear in federal regulatory records. “You have to have a federal license to have an alcohol facility,” Jordan said.
“Where is her winery? On the TTB website, that’s the federal regulation regulatory body that does this.”
Based on those factors, Jordan said the business described in the disclosure does not appear to exist.
“So, no, this doesn’t exist,” he said.
“And it’s a it’s a Phantasm that the idea you can have a winery increase in value. Everybody else in the wine business knows better.”