Pro-Trump congressman accidentally pushes bill banning Trump from spending money at his properties

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) introduced a bill this month specifically designed to target campaign spending by one of his fellow reps, but in doing so, he accidentally pushed for a ban on the Trump's reelection campaign spending money at Donald Trump's privately-owned businesses.

The May 1 legislation called the "Obstructing Monetary Allocations to Relatives Act," or OMAR Act, accuses Ilhan Omar (D-MN) of steering nearly $600,000 since 2018 to a company owned by political consultant Timothy Mynett, whose ex-wife said in divorce filings in early 2019 that he had admitted to carrying on an affair with Omar.

"Our elections should be held to the highest ethical standards and this loophole only serves to invite corruption into the process,” Steube said on Friday. “We should be serving the people as elected officials, not lining our own pockets. This legislation will add more protections for American campaign dollars and prevent candidates from violating the trust of the public."

As the Daily Beast points out, the bill prohibits any campaign payment “to a vendor which is owned or controlled by an immediate family member of the candidate,” which it defines as “a father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, father-in-law, or mother-in-law.”

"Upon taking office in 2017, Trump publicly insisted he had turned over all operations to his two adult sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., who remain the top two executives at the privately held company," the Beast's Lachlan Markay reports. "That means the Trump Organization is, under the terms of Steube’s bill, 'controlled' by immediate family members of the candidate, and therefore that the Trump campaign would be prohibited from spending money at Trump properties."

"It’s almost certain" that the GOP congressman "did not intend to prohibit the president from steering campaign funds to his own hotels, resorts, and golf clubs," the Beast said.

Read the full report over at The Daily Beast.