Obama-Era Probe Found Evidence Ilhan Omar’s 2009 Marriage Was a Sham, Officials Say
Federal agents during the Obama administration found some evidence that Rep. Ilhan Omar entered a sham marriage in 2009 with a man suspected of being her brother, current and former officials say.
The officials told The New York Times that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security investigated the marriage in summer 2016, but the case stalled because the potential felony fell outside a five-year statute of limitations.
The Times based its report on interviews with three officials familiar with the current investigation and six with knowledge of the 2016 probe. It said it remains unclear what evidence prosecutors had then, or have now.
The man, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, is a British citizen Omar married in 2009, when she was already a U.S. citizen. She divorced him in 2017. The marriage is now part of the Trump administration’s widening investigation of the Minnesota Democrat.
Elmi obtained a provisional two-year green card based on the marriage, two former officials said. When immigration officials asked for more proof the marriage was valid, he left the country and abandoned his petition instead of responding.
The 2016 investigators included an FBI agent who specializes in public corruption and civil rights cases and two agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a division of ICE. Two of them still work for their agencies in Minnesota.
The Letter Omar Called an Exoneration
The report also undercuts a letter Omar’s first campaign used to bury the allegation. On Aug. 22, 2016, then-U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger wrote that “my office is not investigating, nor have we requested an investigation into Ms. Omar.”
Omar called the letter proof the claims were “flat-out falsehoods.” Luger now says it “was never meant to say anything about the substance of the claims” and was written only to rebut an erroneous TV report.
Luger said federal agents may have pursued the matter without his knowledge. He added that he never shielded Omar from scrutiny and later backed primary candidates who ran against her.
The New York Post said it confirmed the 2016 investigation, and a source familiar with the probe claimed the “Biden US Attorney in Minnesota shut it down” shortly after taking office in 2021.
Omar’s spokeswoman, Jackie Rogers, rejected the report. “Rep. Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied this baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory,” she said. “This is a desperate political smear designed to distract from Trump’s failed presidency and two years of Republican failure in Congress.”
Asked in an MS NOW interview last week whether Elmi is her brother, Omar answered, “Not to my knowledge,” Patch reported. Elmi did not respond to the Times’ requests for comment.
Marrying anyone solely to secure a green card is a federal crime, and marrying a sibling is illegal under state law. NBC News also reported that the federal probe is examining whether Omar married her brother to obtain a green card.
Even if the statute of limitations blocks a marriage-fraud charge, prosecutors could cite the marriage in a broader indictment or civil case describing a family immigration fraud conspiracy, according to the Times.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said such a case could lead to Omar’s deportation. “If we can prove that you shouldn’t have been here in the first place, we’ll deport you,” he said in September.
Agents searched Omar’s Washington home on Oct. 12, and the Associated Press has reported that authorities seized her phone and issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas. Omar denies wrongdoing and is seeking a fifth term on Nov. 3.
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