Ilhan Omar to Leave DC Home After Federal Search, Says Trump Has ‘Everything to Do With It’
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., said Wednesday she will move out of her Washington, D.C., home because federal agents’ search of the residence made her address public and left her family exposed to threats.
Omar gave her first account of the Oct. 12 search in an interview with MS NOW’s Chris Hayes. She said she had slept only about two and a half hours after returning from a trip when agents began pounding on her doors.
“You don’t show up to somebody’s house that early in the morning unless you’re trying to freak them out,” Omar told Hayes. She said her first thought was that “something was on fire.”
According to NBC News, the agents were with Homeland Security Investigations and arrived around 6 a.m. Omar said her husband and her 20-year-old son were also in the home.
Omar said agents handed over a warrant and then asked her to sign a document waiving protections she holds as a member of Congress. She said she refused, calling the request “obnoxious.”
The search lasted four to five hours and involved as many as 25 agents, Omar said. She said agents took 17 items, including old phones belonging to her and a daughter, her husband’s notebooks and a camera.
She said the items also included a Somali phrase book for children that her husband was using to learn the language. Omar said agents “mostly conducted themselves in a decent way” and put things back in place.
Omar told Hayes she does not believe anything carrying her DNA was taken and that she was not asked for a DNA sample, NBC reported. The New York Post reported earlier this week that prosecutors plan to use DNA evidence in the case.
“Obviously, I can’t continue to live there,” Omar said, saying that with her address public and the death threats she faces, it is no longer feasible to have her children visiting there.
Omar also keeps a home in Minnesota, The Hill noted.
The Justice Department has said only that agents “executed a judicially authorized search warrant” as part of “an ongoing federal criminal investigation.” No charges have been filed.
A person briefed on the probe told the Associated Press that investigators are examining possible fraud in her family’s immigration paperwork and have issued grand jury subpoenas to some relatives.
MS NOW reported that, according to a source, the warrant cited possible immigration fraud, false statements in immigration proceedings and conspiracy. CNN has reported investigators are looking at whether Omar or her late father misstated her age during the citizenship process.
Omar arrived in the U.S. at age 12 after fleeing Somalia’s civil war and became a citizen in 2000. She dismissed the idea that she could be prosecuted for conduct as a child.
“I’m sure there are a lot of smart 12-year-olds, but that seems like a leap,” she said.
President Trump has said the case is up to the Justice Department. “I think she’s a terrible person,” he told reporters the day of the search, the Washington Examiner reported. “I have nothing to do with it.”
Omar rejected that. “He’s got everything to do with it,” she said, pointing to Trump’s attacks on her dating back to 2019. She said she is “confident in my truth” and has done nothing wrong.
Omar is running for reelection Nov. 3 in a heavily Democratic Minneapolis district and is expected to keep her seat, the AP reported.
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