The Memo: Trump critics allege abuse of power as Ilhan Omar’s home is raided

Federal agents raided the Washington area home of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Monday, sparking an instant political firestorm.

Critics of President Trump immediately cast the raid as an abuse of power victimizing a congresswoman who has been a vigorous opponent of the White House, while conservatives celebrated.

The Democratic House leadership released a joint statement condemning the raid as “deeply disturbing.” 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (Mass.) and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (Calif.) added that the raid “raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump’s adversaries.”

Others went even further.

The raid was likened to fascism and called an “unprecedented abuse of power” by, respectively, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), both of whom entered Congress along with Omar at the 2018 elections.

Trump, for his part, yet again lambasted Omar in remarks to reporters as he left the White House late on Monday afternoon. 

The president called Omar “totally crooked”, without evidence, and derided her as “a terrible person,” but insisted that he had “nothing to do with” the raid.

At a minimum, the raid was an extraordinary moment, with footage of agents carting away boxes from the home of a nationally-known congresswoman less than a month before she seeks reelection. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has typically avoiding such actions during a 60-day window preceding elections, though that practice is a custom rather than a law.

Trump has made a habit of bulldozing his way though such norms, however.

He has been especially avid in doing so in pursuit of his political enemies — as when he sent then-Attorney General Pam Bondi a public message urging her to expedite prosecutions of figures including former FBI Director James Comey; and when he called for the prosecution of six Democratic lawmakers (whom he called “traitors”) who had released a video urging members of the military not to obey illegal orders.

Those efforts have not, by and large, met with ultimate success. The case against Comey has moved slowly, with the former FBI head vigorously protesting his innocence, and a grand jury declined to indict the six Democrats over the video.

But such actions cause serious aggravation, at the very least, for those who find themselves in Trump’s crosshairs.

Omar insisted she was unbowed in a statement posted on social media Monday.

Beginning “I’m OK,” Omar went on to characterize the raid as part of a longer pattern in which, she said, “Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns.”

Omar’s post concluded: “I will not be silenced.”

But some of the responses illustrated just how sharply opinion about the Minnesota congresswoman divides along left-right lines. 

Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), a highly provocative figure in her own right, quote-tweeted Omar’s message and added: “Can she ‘not be silenced’ from Somalia?”

A number of conservative accounts also referenced, or posted a screenshot from a years-old tweet by Omar asserting “No one is above the law.” The tweet dates to Trump’s first impeachment proceedings in 2019.

The polarized debate over the raid on Omar’s home is taking place with very little solid information about what exactly is being investigated, or what evidence is being sought. The DOJ told several news organizations merely that the raid was “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”

The Hill noted earlier on Monday that the raid came almost a month after Trump’s border czar Tom Homan had confirmed Omar was being investigated, and implied the probe was centered on allegations of immigration fraud.

Omar, who was born in Somalia in 1982, came to the United States with her family in the mid-1990s. She became a citizen in 2000 and, 16 years later, was elected to the Minnesota statehouse. She was elected to the House two years later.

She has long faced insinuations from conservatives that she abused the immigration process — something that she vigorously denies. Trump and Vice President Vance, among others, have also fueled those accusations. 

Omar usually declines to go into detail about those matters — an approach she casts as an appropriate response to allegations she considers lurid and absurd, and which critics cite as evidence she has something to hide.

The New York Times on Monday reported that the most recent investigations into Omar have been “focusing in part on whether her late father, Nur Omar Mohamed, lied or omitted information as he sought legal status in the United States before becoming a U.S. citizen.” 

If that is true, it would mean the administration was targeting a high-profile political foe for actions her father may or may not have taken roughly 30 years ago.

On the other hand, the Times has also noted that the DOJ during the Biden administration had opened an investigation into Omar “to scrutinize her finances” — though the news organization reported that probe “appears to have stalled for lack of evidence.”

The cloudiness of the picture is not dulling the anger of Trump critics about what took place on Monday, however.

Democratic strategist James Carville  told this column that “it’s pretty clear they were targeting her” but added that he would “love to see what was in the affidavit” that earned court approval for the raid.

“Am I highly suspicious it was made up? Yeah, I am,” Carville said, though he added it was important “to find out what the executive branch told the judicial branch.”

Attorney Brad Moss, who specializes in cases pertaining to national security and federal employment law, contended that while “time will tell” what information was provided to the courts in advance, “this entire situation reeks of political vendetta.” 

Asserting that Omar’s path to U.S. citizenship had long “been the subject of conservative fever dreams,” Moss said there was also a bigger picture to consider.

“To do this mere weeks before the midterms, in defiance of all measure of established rules and guidelines, is just further proof of the ‘go ahead and stop me’ mentality of the Trump White House,” he said.

Whatever else happens, it seems unlikely that the raid will seriously imperil Omar’s chances of reelection. 

Last time out, in 2024, she won her heavily Democratic district by roughly 50 points.

The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage.