Federal agents searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home in Washington, D.C., on Monday morning, according to two people familiar with the investigation.
Homeland Security Investigations, part of the Department of Homeland Security that conducts criminal probes, “executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement. “This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”
The statement did not specify that the warrant was related to Omar and did not provide further information about the nature of the investigation.
A person familiar with the investigation said the search is part of a years-long criminal investigation that involves whistleblowers. A Homeland Security Investigations team of about 15 to 20 agents were seen leaving the house late in the morning.
A spokesperson for Omar, D-Minn., did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment on the search, which was first reported by Fox News. The White House and Department of Homeland Security referred questions about the search to the Justice Department.
The timing puts the search under added scrutiny: There are 22 days until the midterm elections. Omar is running for re-election in Minnesota. There’s longstanding Justice Department practice that tells prosecutors to be especially careful about actions near an election that could appear to help or hurt a candidate.
There is no blanket rule barring the department from acting within 60 days before an election, but that’s long been an unwritten practice. The written policy says prosecutors and agents cannot time investigative steps or public statements to influence an election and directs them to seek guidance when the timing could raise questions.
In 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey publicly disclosed developments in the email probe of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just 11 days before the presidential election.
After he took office, Trump fired Comey, and the administration justified his dismissal by saying he had violated longstanding principles of the Justice Department by announcing his conclusions about the Clinton case. Trump said he would have fired Comey “regardless” of the Justice Department memo outlining what it said were his missteps.
Late last month, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General recommended that the department’s leaders should prioritize giving guidance to agents and prosecutors on actions that could “foreseeably affect an impending election.” Those include “the taking of overt investigative steps, indictments, public announcements, or other actions” that could have such an impact, according to the recommendation, which was initially part of a 2018 report on the DOJ and FBI’s actions leading up to the 2016 election. Omar is running for re-election, and the midterms are less than a month away.
Last month, border czar Tom Homan told Fox News that Omar was being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security.
“If someone committed immigration violation, if someone committed marriage fraud or anything like that, regardless if they’re a congressman or not, no one’s above the law,” Homan said at the time. “So, I’ll leave it at that. We’ll let HSI, Homeland Security Investigations, continue the investigation.”
Omar immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia as a child. She fled Somalia’s civil war with her family when she was eight years old and stayed in a Kenyan refugee camp for four years before moving to the U.S., her website details.
President Donald Trump has frequently lashed out at Omar, who is a member of a progressive faction of women in Congress collectively known as the “squad,” criticizing her over her liberal positions.
Trump targeted both Omar and Somalians over the weekend during his remarks at a rally in Tennessee.
“How about Ilhan Omar? She comes from Somalia,” he said Saturday as the crowd booed.
The president went to characterize the country as ungoverned and lawless, saying “all they have is crime and squalor.”
“What they’ve done to Minnesota, these people from Somalia, what they’ve done to Minnesota should never be allowed,” he added. “And let’s see what happens. JD Vance and our people are looking at it very strongly.”
Early this year, Trump said that the Justice Department and Congress are “looking at” the congresswoman. The president has also repeatedly targeted Minnesota over fraud scandals that roiled the state.
Last week, Trump told Minnesotans to “fight back” against immigrants from Somalia. He claimed in a Truth Social post that the state “is being taken over by Somali Immigrants.”
One of the most high-profile fraud cases was a $250 million case where perpetrators allegedly stole money from a Covid-related program that provided food for children. Since then, the Justice Department announced criminal charges against more than a dozen people in Minnesota over alleged social services fraud.
The former leader of Feeding Our Future, the non-profit at the center of the $250 million fraud case, is white. Most of the defendants in the related cases are of Somali descent, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a fact Trump has highlighted as he has repeatedly disparaged people of Somali descent.
Omar blamed Trump’s rhetoric against her and Somali immigrants as a contributing factor in an attack on her at a town hall event in January.