Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., sat for a lengthy interview with MS NOW host Chris Hayes on Wednesday, and legal scholar Jonathan Turley says Hayes avoided the questions that mattered most: the ones about the active criminal investigation into immigration fraud now surrounding her.
Omar is under federal scrutiny tied to allegations of immigration fraud and marriage fraud. Tom Homan has publicly confirmed there is a “criminal” investigation and said he knows “things are going on.” A Washington, D.C., judge has already found probable cause of criminal conduct sufficient to justify a search. The Department of Justice is also examining her financial disclosures, after Omar reported living “paycheck to paycheck.”
None of that stopped Hayes from spending the bulk of the interview on Omar’s feelings rather than the facts of the case, according to Turley’s review of the exchange.
It took 12 minutes before Hayes even raised the fraud allegations, and when he did, he prefaced it by laughing and saying, “I am trying to figure out the way to do this that doesn’t sound like I’m insane.” He went on to tell Omar, “There are right-wing people who believe” the allegations, and the two laughed together as Omar agreed the questions were “insane.”
Hayes then declared there was “not even a kernel of truth” to the claims before asking Omar to affirm that characterization, and moved on to “other allegations” without detailing what they were.
“I am trying to figure out the way to do this that doesn’t sound like I’m insane.”
When the conversation turned to Omar’s financial disclosures — which showed she and her husband worth $30 million before a drop to a little over $100,000 — Hayes again sidestepped the fraud question entirely. Instead he asked about her “lifestyle” and what it’s like to be among the least wealthy members of Congress.
Turley notes that Hayes spent more time asking Omar how she felt about former President Barack Obama defending her than asking about the specific fraud allegations she is facing. By his count, there were at least 10 direct questions about the investigation that Hayes never put to her.
The interview closed with Hayes asking Omar, “Do you ever just want to tap out?” Omar replied that he had finally reached the “real question.”
Turley’s verdict: on the questions that actually matter to voters, MS NOW had already tapped out long before the interview ended.
Turley and others have stressed that the underlying allegations against Omar remain unproven, with no criminal charges confirmed as of this writing. But he has also noted that Omar has repeatedly declined to address the specific claims directly, instead characterizing the scrutiny as racist or Islamophobic.
