Rep. Ilhan Omar says she has not spoke with federal authorities since agents searched her D.C. home
U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar says federal authorities haven't briefed her on the investigation that led agents to search her Washington, D.C., home, though she said little else when reporters approached her Friday morning after she voted early in Minneapolis.
When asked by reporters what they had shared, Omar briefly answered that "they haven't told us anything" before she was whisked into a car outside the polling place in Minneapolis. Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, is seeking a fifth term in Congress, and the final weeks before the midterm election have been unlike any other for her campaign.
Agents with the Department of Homeland Security executed a search warrant at her home Oct. 12. Details of the warrant are not public, and media organizations are asking a court to unseal it.
Sources told CBS News the investigation is related to immigration paperwork her father filed when she was a child. Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000.
Homeland Security Investigations, the department's criminal investigative arm, led the search, and the Justice Department said it secured the warrant. Omar's office said at the time that she had "done nothing wrong." Omar has not been charged with a crime.
In an interview with MS NOW this week, Omar said she was surprised by what agents took, including notebooks and old phones. She called it "such a bizarre thing."
"I don't think anyone has a real understanding of what is happening," she said.
Omar has called the investigation "an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement." She said she can no longer live in her D.C. home since the raid because of death threats.
A recent Department of Justice court filing referred to Omar by her ex-husband's last name. President Trump, in a social media post, accused her of using a "fake name" when she was elected and claimed her ex-husband was her brother. Omar forcefully denies both claims; the latter was first the subject of intense scrutiny when she was running for the Minnesota Legislature a decade ago.
Responding online, Omar wrote in part: "Whenever the news turns bad, this creep reaches for one name: mine. So let's make it crystal clear. My name has always been Ilhan Omar."
She reiterated the same point to reporters Friday, saying her name is Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.
A source familiar said Omar's legal team does not know the reason why the Justice Department used a second name for Omar in the filing, and underlined it is not her name.
