Omar is in hot water. And this may be the end of the road for her.
Now a smoking gun could prove Ilhan Omar’s worst nightmare.
A social media post that Rep. Ilhan Omar removed seven years ago has resurfaced at the worst possible moment for her, just as federal investigators examine questions surrounding her identity and immigration records. The post, a Father’s Day message from June 2013, appeared to refer to her father by a different name than the one used in later public records.
“Happy Father’s Day to my aabo Nur Said, I am forever grateful to Allah for giving me the best father …,” Omar wrote in the 2013 post. She deleted it the morning of Sept. 19, 2019, the same year questions about her immigration records first gained attention.
The name matters because of what other records say. Several documents, including a memorial post by the Congressional Black Caucus marking her father’s death in 2020, refer to him as “Nur Omar Mohamed.” The deleted post uses “Nur Said,” a name that also resembles the name of her former husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
That resemblance is the root of a rumor that has dogged Omar for years: that her former husband was actually a relative. Omar and her office have repeatedly denied it. A spokesperson told Fox News Digital that she has “repeatedly and unequivocally denied” the “baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory” that she married her brother. Asked on MS NOW whether her one-time husband might have been a “distant relative,” Omar replied, “Not to my knowledge.”
Before anyone leaps to a conclusion, a few cautions are in order. Somali names generally consist of a person’s given name, their father’s given name and their paternal grandfather’s given name, so overlapping names are common. As Fox itself notes, the similarity between names alone does not establish a family relationship. Fox also says it has not independently verified what Omar’s father’s name was.
Omar’s side has an explanation for the post. A statement allegedly attributed to her spokesperson and recirculated online said “Nur Said” was her father’s childhood nickname and that he maintained a public page using the name. The statement said the tweet was deleted because Omar and her family had received threats. That explanation is plausible, and it should be tested against the facts, not waved away.
The post resurfaced after federal agents searched Omar’s Washington home on Oct. 12 as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into possible false statements on immigration and naturalization documents. An archived version of the post, first reported by the Daily Caller in 2019, has been revived by the search and the questions that followed.
There is also the matter of her name. Recent court documents tied to the search warrant identify Omar as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a.k.a. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” Fox notes that the filing does not explain why the name appears or establish that she used a false identity. Two people familiar with the investigation told Fox that “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi” may be her legal name, a characterization her office has disputed.
Omar answered the question directly when Fox pressed her. “Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, you know it,” she said. “It’s Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” Her marriage to Elmi ended in divorce in 2017, and she later legally married Ahmed Hirsi in 2018.
A former Minnesota federal immigration judge told Fox that if investigators prove Omar knowingly used a false name on federal forms, the conduct could be brought into question under the federal false-statements statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1001. Whether that law applies would depend on the specific documents, the materiality of any alleged misstatement and the evidence of intent. In other words, even a name discrepancy does not automatically become a crime.
That is the standard the public should apply. Immigration paperwork from the 1990s, filled out for a family arriving from a war-torn country, can contain errors, variant spellings, nicknames and informal naming practices that confuse bureaucrats to this day. Prosecutors would have to show something more: that false information was knowingly provided and that it mattered.
At the same time, a member of Congress who has spent years lecturing the country about immigration cannot expect her own file to be off limits. Voters are entitled to clear answers about her name, her history and her paperwork, and a federal investigation is a legitimate way to get them if it is carried out fairly and based on evidence.
Omar has called the probe a political attack. The Justice Department did not respond to Fox’s request for comment. As the grand jury process unfolds, the best course for everyone, her critics included, is patience. A deleted tweet is a clue, not a conviction.
For now, what we have are unanswered questions: why the post said what it said, why the records differ, and what investigators believe the documents show. Americans who followed the legal immigration process, with all its forms and fees, will be watching to see whether the answers are given in a courtroom, with evidence, or only on cable news.
