Federal agents collected garbage from Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) Washington, D.C. home before raiding the property last week, searching for her DNA as part of an immigration fraud investigation, according to a NewsNation report citing multiple sources familiar with the probe.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations, a unit of the Department of Homeland Security, executed the raid after a federal judge signed off on a search warrant. Investigators seized Omar’s cellphone during the search and have subpoenaed members of her family.
Sources told NewsNation that DNA evidence is seen as critical to the case, which they say extends well beyond the public’s existing understanding of long-running allegations about Omar’s immigration history and marital status. Evidence gathered in the investigation is expected to go before a grand jury, and relatives of the congresswoman have been named in some of the subpoenas issued by federal prosecutors.
At the center of the inquiry is whether Omar, who was born in Somalia, or her father lied about her age on her naturalization application.
Months of Groundwork Before the Raid
A separate NewsNation report indicates Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been investigating Omar for months before agents moved on her home. In January, ICE agents met with Scott Johnson of Powerline Blog, one of the first outlets to report allegations that Omar married her brother to help him obtain naturalized citizenship faster.
“They asked me questions that related to issues of [Omar’s] immigration and naturalization and also questions related to her father, which would bear on the same issue,” Johnson told NewsNation. “So I inferred at the end of that hour, and from other help that they asked me for, that they were looking at a possible civil proceeding that might lead to her denaturalization.”
A Second Front: Her Finances
The immigration probe isn’t the only investigation Omar is facing. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro revealed this week that her office has opened a financial investigation into the congresswoman. That inquiry may be building on work the Biden administration reportedly started looking into Omar’s multimillion-dollar net worth.
