Ilhan Omar is in a ‘world of hurt’ amid marriage fraud probe, attorney says
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., faces renewed scrutiny as some House Democrats decline to support ending an immigration probe. Attorney Julian Epstein highlights that the marriage fraud investigation dates back to the Obama administration, refuting allegations of partisan targeting. The segment also features a report on pandemic relief fraud cases in Minnesota.
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MINNEAPOLIS — Despite an ongoing federal criminal probe that includes questions about her immigration status and another examining her financial disclosures, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., cruised to reelection Tuesday night.
Omar has represented Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, one of America’s bluest, since winning in the 2018 midterms and becoming one of the first two Muslim women elected to the House of Representatives.
The embattled, Somali-born congresswoman is projected to defeat Republican 30-year state trooper John Nagel.
But after her election night victory, a potential fight looms on another front.
Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., is seeking another term in Minnesota’s heavily Democratic 5th Congressional District. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images)
ILHAN OMAR’S TURBULENT WEEK EXPLAINED: THE DUELING PROBES THAT THREW THE SOMALI-BORN PROGRESSIVE INTO CHAOS
Omar’s Washington, D.C., home was raided on Oct. 12, 2026, by agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the chief investigative body of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Fox News Digital first reported in the wake of the search that Omar is facing an investigation into whether she or her father lied on her immigration paperwork when applying for U.S. citizenship. HSI confiscated Omar’s phone, passport and computer in the raid — investigators also obtained her DNA.
Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, voluntarily spoke to federal investigators in the days after the raid, as reported by Fox News Digital.
Court filings from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the District of Columbia referred to Omar as “Ilhan Omar Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Omar,” suggesting that she shares a surname with the man she married in 2009.
Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is a British citizen. Sources later told Fox News Digital that Ilhan Omar is not the Somali-born congresswoman’s “real name.”
OBAMA ADMIN FIRST LAUNCHED THE INVESTIGATION INTO ILHAN OMAR’S ALLEGED BROTHER MARRIAGE
Homeland Security Investigations police search the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., on Oct. 12, 2026, in Washington, D.C. According to reports, the search is part of an ongoing criminal investigation. (Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)
That news renewed old claims that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is the lawmaker’s brother and that she married him in a potential immigration fraud scheme. A federal investigation into the matter was opened in 2016, and conducted by the FBI and DHS while former President Barack Obama was finishing out his second term.
The investigation was eventually closed during former President Joe Biden’s administration in 2021, a source told Fox News Digital.
ILHAN OMAR FINALLY EMERGES AFTER DC RAID WITH VIDEO PLEADING FOR CASH TO FIGHT TRUMP
Omar has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, and she has not been charged with a crime.
In several responses to inquiries about the investigation, she claimed President Donald Trump is orchestrating an attack against her for political purposes.
“Trump has an unhealthy and creepy obsession with me,” Omar told The Nation this week. “I represent everything Trump and today’s Republican Party seem to despise. I’m a woman, an immigrant, a refugee, a Muslim woman who wears a hijab, and someone who refuses to be intimidated into silence. I know who I am and why I do this work.”
“Rep. Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied this baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory,” Omar’s spokesperson Jackie Rogers told Fox News Digital upon the resurfacing of the alleged brother marriage claims. “This is a desperate political smear designed to distract from Trump’s failed presidency and two years of Republican failure in Congress. And it’s disgraceful that the media continues to give this lie oxygen.”
The raid on Omar’s residence in the nation’s capital that she shared with her current husband, political consultant Tim Mynett, took place in the final month of the midterm campaign. That didn’t stop her from returning to her home state, reemerging to cast her ballot and convening with the Somali community at a Somali mall in Minneapolis.
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As the controversy built, Omar campaigned online and asked for donations from supporters to help her fight the costly battle she will likely face coming off of Tuesday’s win.
The week before the 2026 midterms, Omar embraced radical left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who come to Minneapolis to campaign with the embattled lawmaker.