Ilhan Omar’s shady castle starts to crumble
by Robert Knight · The Washington TimesOPINION:
The Justice Department finally got around to gathering evidence of possible immigration skullduggery involving Rep. Ilhan Omar, Minnesota Democrat and Somali immigrant — and maybe much more.
In a predawn Oct. 12 raid, Homeland Security Investigations agents removed boxes of documents from Ms. Omar’s Washington home after obtaining a warrant from a federal judge, a Democrat. This sounds familiar, without the leg irons. More on that later.
We were initially told that this raid was not about Ms. Omar allegedly marrying her brother in 2009 so he could legally enter the U.S. from Britain. Or the tangle of scandals around the massive welfare fraud in Ms. Omar’s Minneapolis district, which has cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.
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Nor was it about Ms. Omar’s amended financial disclosure form in April showing a joint income with her current husband, Tim Mynett, of $18,000 to $95,000. This was a drop from the 2025 disclosure of their worth, which was $6 million to $30 million, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported. A House committee is investigating the discrepancy. Ms. Omar’s staff has blamed it on “an accounting error,” saying “the Congresswoman is not a millionaire.”
Investigators are also reviewing Ms. Omar’s immigration status and family identification when she was brought here as a 12-year-old in 1995 by her legally recognized father, Nur Omar Mohamed. He served as a colonel in the Somali National Army under Marxist dictator Siad Barre.
Questions remain about when Nur Omar Mohamed was naturalized and whether Ms. Omar changed dates on official forms, which would constitute fraud.
Anyway, the outrage and collective amnesia over the document seizures in Washington were predictable. “Stunning raid on Ilhan Omar’s home smacks of intimidation, experts say,” was the headline on “The Fix” column by Amber Phillips in The Washington Post on Wednesday. The “experts” in the piece are shocked — shocked — that anyone would engage in politically motivated investigations, especially so soon before an election.
They have half a point. This should have been done years ago.
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Citing Trump administration cases against former FBI Director James B. Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Ms. Phillips writes that “many legal experts say those repeated investigations and indictments of a president’s perceived foes are an affront to the rule of law.”
On cue, prominent affronted Democrats cried crocodile tears. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Washington Democrat and chair emerita of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, on which Ms. Omar is deputy chair, called the raid “a dangerous sign” of an authoritarian president, according to The Federalist.
House Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar issued a joint statement calling the actions “deeply disturbing” and evidence of “corrupt weaponization” of the government.
By contrast, when the FBI raided President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug. 8, 2022, in a vain search for illegally kept classified materials, Democrats cheered. Mr. Jeffries and others said, “No one is above the law,” and Ms. Jayapal said, “Trump should be in jail.”
Here is the Aug. 8, 2022, headline from The Washington Post: “FBI searches Trump safe at Mar-a-Lago for possible classified documents: Search was court-authorized and related to long-running investigation, person familiar with the probe said.”
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Oh, guess it is OK, then.
More from that piece: “Trump said the raid was ’unannounced’ and claimed it was not ’necessary or appropriate.’ The former president, without evidence, accused Democrats of weaponizing the ’justice system’ against him.” Without evidence?
A former president who saw top aides targeted by predawn raids and was facing four politically motivated felony cases against him in four jurisdictions probably did not need any more evidence that Democrats were weaponizing the system.
One of the aides, trade adviser Peter Navarro, was put in leg irons, handcuffed and strip-searched. He and another aide, Steve Bannon, later served prison time for refusing to reveal confidential White House conversations.
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Now we have learned that special counsel Jack Smith was even gathering information on more than 639,000 of Mr. Trump’s supporters, including those who bought red MAGA hats, according to The Washington Times’ Stephen Dinan.
Back to the poor, victimized Ms. Omar. The account of her marriage to her brother has been heavily documented by Scott Johnson, beginning in 2016, when he was writing for the “Power Line” blog.
In a Washington Free Beacon article titled “Yes, Ilhan Omar Married Her Brother,” Mr. Johnson cites copious evidence. The Dec. 12, 2025, Free Beacon piece includes a photo of the marriage license from Feb. 12, 2009, and notes that The Minnesota Star Tribune followed up in 2016 but was stonewalled by Ms. Omar’s staff and accused of bigotry.
In 2019, The Star Tribune revisited the issue in a 3,000-word piece that, Mr. Johnson said, “proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Omar married her brother for some fraudulent purpose.”
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For years, Ms. Omar has denied any responsibility for the multibillion-dollar welfare fraud in her Minneapolis district, largely among her fellow Somalis.
In 2020, she introduced the MEALS Act, which weakened federal rules regarding food aid. This unleashed the Feeding Our Future nutrition fraud scheme in Minnesota.
I cannot help but think that this kind of massive criminality went largely unexamined by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz because it benefited his Democratic Party. It also went on for years because anyone asking questions was accused of racism and Islamophobia.
The America- and Israel-hating Ms. Omar is particularly skilled in this tactic.
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• Robert Knight is a columnist for The Washington Times. His website is roberthknight.com.
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