The congresswomen who make up the radical leftist “Squad” are known for railing against capitalism and paying lip service to populism. But the rhetoric stands in contrast to the behind-the-scenes way in which they have indirectly gotten rich through lucrative business deals given to their husbands.
A report by the Washington Free Beacon examines the ways in which the spouses/fiancés of Democratic Reps. Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Cori Bush (Mo.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.) have accumulated millions of dollars since their wives have been in the Capitol.
Pressley’s husband, Conan Harris, is a convicted felon who served ten years in prison for drug trafficking. Prior to the start of his wife’s stint in Congress in 2019, Harris was a public safety adviser to then-Boston mayor Marty Walsh (D.) making $92,000 per year. Once Pressley took office, her husband left the mayoral gig and started his own consulting firm.
Per Pressley’s financial disclosures, Harris tripled what he had been making with the mayor by 2021. And by 2022, his consulting gig brought in up to $1.05 million.
Harris’ client list includes the Boston Office of Police Accountability and Transparency. He also made $114,000 for consulting work in support of a ballot initiative to classify gig workers as independent contractors. Ironically, Pressley herself openly opposed the measure even while her husband supported it through his consulting work.
Also, prior to leaving the mayor’s office, Harris had attempted to convince the staff there to keep him on as a part-time consultant making $50,000 a year for working just eight hours a week even while being involved in his own political consulting business. The mayor’s office rejected his proposal.
Then there’s Bush, whose husband, Cortney Merritts, is a private security guard and has received regular paychecks from his wife’s campaign. The payments began before they were legally married this February; since January 2022, Merritts has been paid over $92,000 in bimonthly $2,500 installments from Bush’s campaign committee, per Federal Election Commission records.
Naturally, Bush herself is benefiting from these payments, given that she lives with Merritts. In short, the congresswoman is living off of donor money — even though she’s already being paid $174,000 a year by taxpayers.
Back in March, a couple of watchdog groups pointed out that these payments from Bush to her husband may be in violation of campaign finance laws. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust wrote in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission: “It appears Rep. Bush’s campaign may have made payments for services that were unnecessary or above fair market value because of her personal relationship with the payee. If so, these payments would qualify as either impermissible payments to a family member or an impermissible gift.”
In Bush’s defense, her campaign attorney, David Mitrani, says Merritts is paid the same as the congresswomans’ other security contractor, Nathaniel Davis.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, arguably the Squad’s most well-known member, is not legally married. Yet in four disclosures with the House Ethics Committee this year, she described her fiancé, Riley Roberts, as her “spouse” — even though the ethics committee’s definition of spouse is strictly “someone to whom you are legally married.”
Nevertheless, because the couple is unmarried, Ocasio-Cortez is not legally required to report Roberts’ income, stock holdings, and other financial information. What is known is that in 2017, he made $6,000 doing marketing consulting for Brand New Congress, the PAC that recruited AOC to run for Congress in the first place. And in October 2020, per campaign filings, Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign reimbursed Roberts over $1,000 for car rental costs.
Finally, there is Ilhan Omar, who is now on husband number three, political consultant Tim Mynett.
The Free Beacon notes of the couple’s finances:
[Omar’s] campaign paid Tim Mynett’s firm just under $3 million from 2018 through 2020 for advertising and fundraising consulting services, with payments beginning as the pair embarked on a secret romantic affair.
Though Omar and Mynett in 2019 initially denied having an affair, the pair ultimately divorced from their respective spouses and tied the knot in March 2020. Omar’s campaign cut ties with Mynett’s firm, E Street Group, after the 2020 elections amid widespread criticism that the “Squad” member was enriching her husband with campaign funds.
Cut off from his largest political client, Mynett switched gears after the 2020 election and entered the private equity business, with a focus on the wine industry. Mynett and his business partner Will Hailer founded Rose Lake Capital, which focuses on “acquiring undervalued assets.” Mynett and Hailer each hold a 37 percent stake in eSt Cru, an award-winning California winery founded in 2020 that sells a lineup of political and crypto-related brands such as Blockchain, Redacted, and No Middle Ground.
Mynett’s foray into the private equity business has not been without its challenges — one of his firms, eST Ventures, was slapped with a lawsuit in February for allegedly defrauding two South Carolina-based medical marijuana companies out of approximately $1.7 million.
The case was ultimately resolved out of court and dismissed by the plaintiffs.
It helps to have friends in high places. Or, in Mynett’s case, to be married to someone in a high place.
