A long-circulating allegation about Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar's marital history may now be at the heart of a renewed federal probe. The New York Times, citing "current and former officials familiar with the matter," reports that investigators are again examining whether Omar entered into a fraudulent 2009 marriage to British citizen Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a man some agents suspect is her brother, to help him secure a green card. An initial Obama-era inquiry turned up possible indications of fraud but fizzled over statute-of-limitations concerns, according to Times reports.
The Trump administration has now folded the question of that marriage into a wider look at the Omar family's refugee journey from Somalia and possible immigration irregularities involving her late father and her own path to citizenship.The investigation spilled into public view when agents searched Omar's Washington, DC, home on Oct. 12, just weeks before the midterms in which she's seeking a fifth term. Democrats call the timing political, and Omar has strongly rejected the allegations.
- "Rep. Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied this baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory," Jackie Rogers, a spokeswoman for Omar, said in a statement. "This is a desperate political smear designed to distract from Trump's failed presidency and two years of Republican failure in Congress."
- It's not clear what evidence allegedly points to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi being Omar's brother. According to the Times' sources, he obtained a provisional green card based on the marriage. But when he applied to make the status permanent, immigration officials sought more evidence on the validity of the marriage and he abandoned the application and left the US, the sources say.
- Legal experts say marriage fraud would be tough to prove and tough to prosecute, given the statute of limitations, Fox News reports. An investigation of Omar during Trump's first administration reportedly found no evidence of wrongdoing.
- Newsweek looks at the timeline of Omar's three marriages. She has said she married fellow Somali immigrant Ahmed Hirsi in a traditional Islamic ceremony in 2001. She legally married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009. Their divorce was finalized in 2017, six years after she said they separated. She legally married Hirsi, father of her three children, in 2018 and they divorced in 2019. In 2020, she married political consultant Tim Mynett.
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