Eh…not so fast:
The Oct. 23 deposition of the fixer, Alan Bender, was taken as part of a case that had little to do with him, and most of the questions and answers had no seeming relevance to the case either.
The Daily Caller News Foundation reviewed the deposition and deemed it not credible. It even gets Omar’s job wrong, repeatedly calling her a senator.
But the Jerusalem Post published that a “Florida court has heard” that Omar was a secret foreign agent, and the story rapidly began making the rounds among American conservatives.
Ilhan Omar ‘Qatari asset,’ Florida court hears
The Democratic Congresswoman is said to have passed information to Qatar which was subsequently handed along to Iran.
Ilhan Omar was recruited by a foreign government, received funding from a foreign government, and passed sensitive information through intermediates to Iran, a Florida court has been told.
The claims came during testimony by Kuwati-born Canadian businessman Alan Bender, who was giving evidence in the trial of Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani. The Qatari emir’s brother stands accused of ordering his American bodyguard to murder two people, and of holding an American citizen hostage. His deposition, obtained by Al Arabiya English, was authenticated by the attorney for the plaintiffs, according to the publication.
Speaking from Toronto by video link, Bender told the Florida District Court that he met with Qatar’s Secretary to the Emir for Security Affairs Mohammad bin Ahmed bin Abdullah al-Masnad and two other senior Qatari officials.
According to his sworn deposition, the three officials told him: “If it wasn’t for our cash, Ilhan Omar would be just another black Somali refugee in America collecting welfare and serving tables on weekends.”
