Project Veritas claims ballot-harvest operation underway in Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar's District

Project Veritas, headed up by video guerrilla James O'Keefe, has released another sting – and this one's a doozy.

The group claims those close to Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar have been engaging in illegal ballot harvesting and a cash-for-ballots scheme in her district in Minneapolis, where she serves as a first-term lawmaker.

In a video released by Project Veritas, O'Keefe identifies Liban Mohamad as a “ballot broker” who "boasts about the hundreds of absentee ballots in his car" trunk. 

"This video is a one of the first of its kind: A man self-incriminating himself, bragging about all the illegal ballot-harvesting that he does," O'Keefe says to open the video. 

The video then cuts to Mohamed, who says: "Money is everything. Money is the king of this world. Money is everything and a campaign is driven by money."

According to O'Keefe, Mohamed illegally collected 300 ballots from primarily Somali immigrants to help his "young brother," City Councilman Jamal Osman – who won his election in August, beating 10 opponents.

"Numbers don't lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentee ballots. Look, all these are for Jamal Osman," he says.

“Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities," O'Keefe said.

The story came to O'Keefe from whistleblower Omar Jamal, who identifies himself as part of the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office and chairman of the city’s Somali Watchdog Group. He said he's talking now because he thinks corruption is weakening the Somali community – and that Omar is partly responsible. 

He claims that Omar’s campaign is ordering absentee ballots for elderly people, casting those ballots for Omar or another chosen candidate, and then submitting them to election officials.

“It's an open secret,” he said. “She [Omar] will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that.”

“I'm afraid it's already too big to stop, you know, maybe it's too late. Maybe it's already too big to stop,” Jamal said. “There's a lot of people invested in this, you know, and they don't care how they did it: ‘We win,’ and that's it.”

“If American people don't pay attention to what's happening, the country will collapse,” Jamal said. “The regulations, if you ignore that and you let corruption and fraud become a daily business and then tough luck, the country will not exist as they [Americans] know it,” he said.

President Trump retweeted the Project Veritas video, saying: "This is totally illegal. Hope that the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota has this, and other of her many misdeeds, under serious review??? If not, why not??? We will win Minnesota because of her, and law enforcement. Saved Minneapolis & Iron O Range!"

Also implicating Omar’s campaign is an anonymous Minneapolis-based former political worker, who says  before Minnesota’s primary elections on Aug. 8, ballot harvesters “took every single ballot” from elderly people in a Minneapolis public housing complex – the Charles Horn Towers.

“Knock on the door and say, ‘Your ballots come? Give it to me.’" She alleges Omar’s long-serving staffer, campaign deputy district director Ali (Isse) Gainey, was “coordinating everything.”

Gainey, “who is working in Ilhan’s campaign, is the one who is managing the voting place. They bring them. They line them. They put the open ballots in there and then they take them in and say, ‘Here,’ and the people mark [the ballots] . . .

“They have perfected this system,” she said. “They will tell you, ‘We are applying for your ballot.’ They take a picture of your Social Security and your driver’s license. They have a database. When the ballot comes, they track it. Sometimes, they make fake emails. They track the ballot. Then they come and pick up the ballot, unopened."

But Jeremy Slevin, senior communications director for Omar, said: "The amount of truth to this story is equal to the amount Donald Trump paid in taxes of ten out of the last fifteen years: zero. And amplifying a coordinated right-wing campaign to delegitimize a free and fair election this fall undermines our democracy."

"Said O'Keefe at the end of the video: "Oh, and we're not done. Stay tuned for part two."

Omar was first elected in 2018 and became a member of "The Squad," along with Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts. She has been blasted for  anti-Semitic remarks and accused of shifty campaign spending – and even of having committed immigration fraud by marrying her brother. 

In March, reports emerged about Omar and her then-campaign consultant Tim Mynett, who heads the E Street Group.

"Since 2018, Omar’s campaign paid about $586,000 to E Street Group for a range of services that included digital advertising, fundraising consulting, digital communications and design. The campaign also paid $7,000 to Mynett directly for fundraising consulting before hiring his consulting firm," The Washington Post reported.

Omar filed for a divorce from her second husband, Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi, last October after allegations had swirled for months that she was having an affair with campaign consultant Tim Mynett . She soon after married Mynett, her third marriage.

"The divorce comes less that two months after reports first emerged that Omar has been involved in an extramarital affair with Tim Mynett, a Washington, D.C.-based political consultant. Mynett and his company, E Street Group, have received approximately $230,000 through her campaign for fundraising consulting, digital communications, internet advertising, and travel expenses," reported the New York Post.

In July, reports show that Omar’s re-election campaign reportedly paid her new husband’s consulting firm more than $600,000 in the first three weeks of July, according to Federal Election Commission records.