What happened
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) came under federal investigation recently for her finances, just days after federal agents raided her home and issued subpoenas for her family members as part of a sprawling immigration probe that could produce criminal charges or a denaturalization case against her. The moves marked a dramatic escalation targeting one of President Trump’s most outspoken critics. Sources told The Washington Post that an investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been looking into whether Omar, 44, or her late father lied about her birth date and omitted information about his past military service when they were immigrating to the U.S. from Somalia in 1995. Separately, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said her office is probing whether the representative inflated her net worth on financial disclosure forms, an allegation for which she had already been cleared by the Office of Congressional Conduct. Omar said Trump is trying “to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.
The search is a highly unusual breach of the “blackout” period customarily observed by the DOJ in the 60 days before an election, during which the agency typically refrains from taking any public actions that could imply partisanship or influence the election’s outcome. Speaking to reporters this week, President Trump denied that he had played a direct role in the raid on Omar’s residence but called her a “terrible person.” One senior Democrat told Axios that the search set off alarm bells within the party, which expects “more October surprises.”
What the columnists said
This shameful episode was clearly designed to cast “an air of suspicion and criminality” over one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent progressives, said Moira Donegan in The Guardian. Omar has frequently been targeted by the “conspiracist cesspool of the far-right internet,” which has circulated a number of unfounded rumors about her, including the allegation that she was once married to her own brother. Those attacks found their champion in Trump, who “has been smearing her,” and her country of origin, “for the better part of a decade.”
After repeatedly overreaching in other cases, the Trump administration doesn’t “deserve the benefit of the doubt,” said Rich Lowry in National Review. But Omar has done herself no favors by responding to legitimate questions about her background with “angry, uninformative dismissals.” For instance, she has called her father a teacher, when his obituary referred to him as “an esteemed senior officer in the Somali National Army.” Did he disclose that to U.S. immigration authorities?
This is Trump’s last midterm pitch, said Renée Graham in The Boston Globe: “Gutter racism.” That’s “the tie that binds Trump to his followers.” He amplified “disgusting lies” about Haitian immigrants in the 2024 presidential campaign and recently called New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, a Black woman, “a dog.” Trump must believe that appealing to the MAGA faithful’s worst selves will ensure they support his “worst-of-the-worst presidency.”