Ilhan Omar says she can no longer live in D.C. home searched by federal agents, citing death threats

Rep. Ilhan Omar said she can't keep living in the Washington, D.C., home that federal agents searched, because its address is now public and she is facing death threats.

The Minnesota Democrat described the search and its aftermath in an interview Wednesday night with MS NOW's Chris Hayes. She said she is working out where to move and doesn't want people tracking her children, who visit on and off. 

Omar said she is leaning on her faith.

"I'm designed uniquely by God to withstand all of this," she said.

She said those targeting her would be most satisfied if she gave up and left Congress, but she has "a legal right to be a member of Congress." She also said she is confident she "didn't do anything wrong."

Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar's home Oct. 12 as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Sources told CBS News the same day that the investigation centered on Omar's immigration paperwork, which dates to her childhood and was completed by her late father, and that investigators were examining potential false statements and immigration fraud.

Omar said Homeland Security Investigations agents arrived at her home at about 6 a.m. Her husband and 20-year-old son were inside.

"You don't show up to somebody's house that early in the morning unless you're trying to freak them out," Omar said. She said she had slept about two and a half hours after traveling and thought something was on fire. Agents surrounded the house and pounded on the front and back doors, she said, as she and her husband hurried downstairs.

Omar said she asked for a search warrant and agents provided one. She said 15 to 25 agents searched room by room for four to five hours, and she couldn't call her attorney until about an hour in. Agents took fewer than 20 items, about half of them notebooks and old phones, Omar said. They also took an old camera her husband's uncle gave him and a Somali phrase book. 

Omar said she believes the Trump administration needed to "save face" with right-wing influencers after promising that something would happen to her. She said she believes the broader goal is to scare people from voting, but that she is hearing the opposite: calls about long lines at early voting sites and staff who can't keep up with requests for rides. 

Omar's office has said she has done nothing wrong. President Trump told reporters he had nothing to do with the search. Omar rejected that in her Wednesday interview, saying he had "everything to do with it."

In an Instagram video after the search, Omar vowed to keep campaigning in the weeks before the midterm elections.