Ethics complaints filed against Ilhan Omar

A conservative watchdog group has filed a formal complaint against Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, accusing her of multiple counts of fraud and perjury.

Judicial Watch announced Tuesday that it has filed a complaint with the House of Representatives Office of Congressional Ethics, and is calling for a full investigation of Rep. Omar.

The complaint called for a full investigation into Omar, and potential fraud-related crimes that she may have committed in purportedly marrying her biological brother.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said that there is “overwhelming” evidence that Omar could have broken the law, and that the House should be compelled to “urgently investigate and resolve the serious allegations of wrongdoing” on Omar’s part.

Fitton insists that “substantial, compelling and, to date, unrefuted evidence has been uncovered that Rep. Ilhan Omar may have committed the following crimes in violation of both federal and Minnesota state law.” Those alleged crimes include perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, state and federal tax fraud, and federal student loan fraud.”

A portion of the complaint reads, “The evidence developed against Rep. Omar was the result of a three-year-long investigation in both the United States and the United Kingdom by [David] Steinberg and his investigative reporter colleagues Preya Samsundar and Scott Johnson.”

Steinberg’s investigation alleges that Omar married her biological brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi to “assist his emigration to the United States from the United Kingdom.” After the alleged marriage, Elmi was reportedly able to emigrate to the U.S., secure federal student loans, and attend North Dakota State University.

“Documented-based reporting by Steinberg, et al. has developed the following information: Rep. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, a citizen of the United States, married her biological brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a citizen of the United Kingdom, in 2009, presumably as part of an immigration fraud scheme. The couple legally divorced in 2017,” Fitton wrote.

Omar gave birth to children fathered by another man, Ahmed Hirsi, both before and during her marriage to Elmi. Legal documents such as speeding tickets demonstrate that she lived with Hirsi during the entirety of her marriage to Elmi.

Omar requested a “default” divorce from Elmi in 2017, an unusual proceeding used where one spouse has disappeared and cannot be located.

To obtain a divorce, Omar filed papers with the Minnesota district court swearing under penalty of perjury that she last saw him in 2011 and had no clues about how to contact him through other people.

She swore that she didn’t know the name of a single member of her husband’s family, and that they didn’t have any friends or acquaintances in common who might know how to locate him, according to papers she filed with the Minnesota district court to secure a divorce.

She swore she tried to locate him through social media but could not, even though he had public profiles on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Screenshots additionally show Omar continuously interacting with him on social media in the years since.

“The evidence developed by Mr. Steinberg and his colleagues demonstrates with a high degree of certainty that Ms. Omar not only had contact with Mr. Elmi, but actually met up with him in London in 2015, which is supported by photographic evidence,” Judicial Watch’s complaint says.

Of particular importance are archived photographs taken during a widely reported trip by Ilhan Omar to London in 2015, posted to her own Instagram account under her nickname ‘hameey,’ in which she poses with her husband/presumed brother, Ahmed Elmi. These photographs from 2015 are documentary evidence that in fact she met up with Mr. Elmi after June 2011 and before the date she signed the divorce document in August 2017, thereby calling into question the veracity of her claim that she had not seen Mr. Elmi since June 2011.

In Instagram screenshots, published by Powerline and conservative outlet Alpha News, and which appear to have been deleted, the two men are sometimes pictured together, and Elmi refers to Omar’s children as his “nieces.”

Omar was fined by the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board for using campaign funds to pay for an accountant to amend her taxes after she filed taxes jointly with Hirsi while she was not married to him (filing joint taxes with a non-spouse is not permitted) and while she was actually married to another man.