Federal agents on Monday searched the home of Democratic US Rep. Ilhan Omar, a startling escalation in a criminal investigation that brings renewed focus to the frequent target of Trump administration derision in the final weeks of her reelection bid.
Photo Credit: AFP In a statement on X on Monday, Omar called the search an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. The search of the Minnesota congresswoman’s home so close to next month’s midterm contests that will determine control of the House and the Senate was swiftly condemned by top Democrats in Congress, who raised questions about the timing given longstanding Justice Department protocol to avoid overt investigative steps involving political candidates in the direct run-up to an election. The scope of the investigation was unclear, though Trump and officials in his administration have repeatedly referred in recent months to the existence of an inquiry into Omar, a Somali-born Democrat whose status as an immigrant to the US and left-wing views have drawn scrutiny from the White House and other Republicans. “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. “I will not be silenced. The search was carried out by agents with Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. The street around Omar’s home was blocked off Monday morning as some HSI agents removed boxes labeled “Seized Property Evidence. Trump suggested he didn’t know what was happening with the investigation even as he seemed to suggest that Omar was engaged in suspect behavior. She is part of The Squad of progressive lawmakers who are a vibrant political force on the left wing of Congress but have also endured repeated attacks from Trump, dating back to his first term. She was one of the first two Muslim-American women in the House and the first African refugee to be elected to Congress. In January, Trump lashed out at Omar during a rally in Iowa hours before an assailant sprayed the congresswoman during her own town hall meeting in Minneapolis with a substance that turned out to be vinegar.
The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public investigative actions involving a candidate within 60 days of a primary or general election. “Now, less than 30 days until the midterm election, his violent mass deportation machine has descended upon the home of a duly elected Member of Congress and her family. Omar, who was first elected to the House in 2018, represents Minnesota’s 5th District, including Minneapolis. When Republicans swept control of the House in 2023, they voted to oust Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee, citing her anti-Israel remarks. The attacker was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Omar, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, said she was being targeted as one of the Republican’s “political enemies. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin last month cited an “ongoing investigation” that he suggested was examining potential fraud in her family’s immigration paperwork. “Something’s going to happen,” he said in a potential foreshadowing of the search. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” she said. Top Democrats seized on the timing as the latest instance in what they said was the “continued corrupt weaponization” against Trump’s perceived adversaries. “For years, Donald Trump and far-right extremists have relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Omar with vile personal attacks and baseless accusations,” said a joint statement from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top congressional Democrats. A DHS spokesperson referred questions to the Justice Department, which said in a statement that HSI agents had executed a judicially authorized search warrant in the Washington, D.C., area related to an ongoing federal criminal investigation but provided no other details. The operation came just days after Trump referred pejoratively to Omar at a rally in Tennessee as coming from a country of “crime and squalor” and suggested that Vice President JD Vance “and our people” were investigating her. Hours after the search, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with it and it’s “really up to the DOJ. Vance has in the past accused Omar of committing immigration fraud, an allegation she has denied, and has said the administration was looking for pathways to investigate her.
Though the Republican focus on Omar’s background dates back years, the search notably took place three weeks before the November midterms, in which Omar is seeking reelection.
At a political rally in Ohio later Monday, Trump attacked Omar’s Somali origins, saying, “She’s telling us about the Constitution, and she comes from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet. The crowd responded by shouting, “Deport. Omar has repeatedly refuted allegations about her marriage and immigration status raised by conservative critics, even before she joined Congress. Conservative online sites have alleged that Omar married a brother to commit immigration fraud. “So we’re going to investigate it. We’re going to take a look at it. If we think there’s a crime, we’re going to prosecute that crime. And that’s something the Department of Justice is looking at right now. Omar’s office at the time dismissed Vance’s claims as fabricated and defamatory. Last month, when the podcaster Johnson reminded Mullin about Vance’s comments on Omar and asked whether anything would happen from that investigation, the Homeland Security secretary responded, “Something’s going to happen. “If we actually move a case forward, it’s not a political case.
Because they did things wrong,” Mullin said, it’s actually a case. Omar has said she and her family fled Somalia’s civil war when she was 8: “The family spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States in 1990s, according to her House biography. In 1997, she moved to Minneapolis with her family.
Omar has broadly denied the allegations as “disgusting lies” and called the insinuation “absurd and offensive. “It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but everybody’s entitled to equal justice under the laws,” Vance told reporters in May. In an interview last March with conservative podcaster Benny Johnson, Vance said without offering evidence that “we actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud against the United States of America. He cited an “ongoing investigation” that he suggested was examining potential fraud in the family’s immigration paperwork. “If you decided to break the law or lie on the information that you gave to the United States, to be able to come into the United States … there’s no expiration to that.” (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
