Obama admin. found evidence suggesting Rep. Ilhan Omar married a sibling
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under former President Barack Obama found evidence suggesting Representative Ilhan Omar married a man suspected of being her brother to help him obtain a green card, according to a new report.
On Thursday, The New York Times (NYT) reported that evidence was uncovered in 2016 that showed Omar’s (D-Minn.) marriage was fraudulent, citing interviews with three current and former officials — three familiar with ongoing investigations and six with knowledge of the 2016 probe.
Recent investigations into Omar revealed last week that her name is actually Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). Officials familiar with the investigations pointed to records where her surname matched that of her ex-husband and alleged brother Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
Murmurs that Omar committed marriage fraud — a felony — with a brother surfaced a decade ago, during her 2016 congressional campaign. At the time, Somali community message boards and conservative outlets had claimed that she had once married a sibling, according to the NYT.
Omar has long called the speculation a right-wing conspiracy that was debunked in 2016. The case stalled, however, because prosecutors concluded that the alleged crime took place outside of the five-year statute of limitations.
Federal agents in Minnesota reportedly found that Ahmed Elmi had obtained a provisional two-year green card based on the marriage. When he sought to become a permanent resident, immigration officials requested additional proof of the marriage’s validity. Elmi then left the U.S., abandoning his green card petition.
By her own account in her 2020 memoir, “This is What America Looks Like,” Omar has been married three times. She wrote that she first married fellow Somali immigrant Ahmed Hirsi in an Islamic ceremony in 2001, when she was 18 years old. They did not file legal documents for the union. Hirsi is also the father of her three children, Isra, Adnan and Ilwad Hirsi
According to the book, her second marriage was an impulsive elopement in 2009 to a British man. This was an apparent reference to Elmi, though she did not use his name, according to the NYT. Despite her being an observant Muslim, the couple’s marriage certificate was signed by a Christian pastor instead of an imam.
A campaign finance probe found that in 2014 and 2015, while still legally married to Elmi, Omar filed joint federal tax returns with Hirsi. She later amended the tax filings, but did not explain the discrepancy.
Omar’s marriage to Elmi was dissolved in court in 2017, with a divorce filing allegedly saying they had not had contact for years.
Hirsi and Omar legally married in 2018, but divorced in 2019, marriage and court records show.
In 2020, she announced that she had wed a third partner, a political consultant for her campaign, Tim Mynett.
“Rep. Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied this baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory,” Jackie Rogers, the congresswoman’s spokeswoman, said in a statement responding to the renewed scrutiny on her marital history. “This is a desperate political smear designed to distract from Trump’s failed presidency and two years of Republican failure in Congress.”
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