Uh oh, Ilhan Omar…
The Minneapolis Star-Tribune — Rep. Ilhan Omar’s hometown newspaper — is starting to dig around those allegations that she married her brother as part of an immigration fraud scheme and “has found new evidence that it could be true”:
BREAKING: The StarTribune, which is left-leaning and endorsed Hillary Clinton, has conducted an investigation into the allegation that Ilhan Omar married her brother and has found new evidence that it could be true. https://t.co/npkpaEgN03
— Caleb Hull (@CalebJHull) June 23, 2019
From the Star-Tribune:
New investigative documents released by a state agency have given fresh life to lingering questions about the marital history of Rep. Ilhan Omar and whether she once married a man — possibly her own brother — to skirt immigration laws.
Omar has denied the allegations in the past, dismissing them as “baseless rumors” first raised in an online Somali politics forum and championed by conservative bloggers during her 2016 campaign for the Minnesota House. But she said little then or since about Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, the former husband who swept into her life in 2009 before a 2011 separation.
And Omar is refusing to answer questions to clear up the discrepancy, calling any inquiry into her personal life “illegitimate”:
Sent a list of questions and a request to talk to her siblings and father, Omar declined to do so. Hirsi did not reply to multiple calls, texts and e-mails. Social media posts indicate Elmi is in Africa. He did not respond to multiple e-mails.
Omar’s reticence is consistent with near total silence she has maintained for three years amid questions raised through public records picked over by conservative opinion journalists intent on proving that she committed immigration fraud. Those attacks, she once tweeted, are the provenance of “fake journalists on bigoted blogs.”
Omar spokesman Jeremy Slevin issued a statement Friday asserting that the questions about her personal life are illegitimate:
Separately, the Washington Examiner’s Tiana Lowe was in Omar’s district and here’s what she found:
EXCLUSIVE: I went to Ilhan Omar's district for five days. This is what I found. https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
EXCLUSIVE: Dozens of documents obtained by the Washington Examiner indicate Ilhan Omar lived with Ahmed Hirsi during the years she claimed to be married by law and in faith to Ahmed Elmi. https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
In legal documents, including 24 traffic violations and misdemeanor charges, Hirsi listed his address in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, & 2011 at the same address listed by Omar in 2007, 2009, & 2012.
Omar says she was married to Elmi from 2009 to 2011. https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
Omar & Elmi both listed their address in their marriage application as a home in Columbia Heights. Hirsi, though registered a business to the Minnesota Secretary of State using that as his home address just three months after Omar’s legal marriage to Elmi. https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
Under penalty of perjury, Omar wrote during divorce proceedings that she had not contacted or known the whereabouts of Elmi since the summer of 2011. Elmi’s social media account published by Alpha News show Elmi with Omar's daughter in 2012. https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
We now know that Ilhan Omar attempted to shut down multiple media reports about her marriages during her 2016 campaign. There is evidence that she always lived with Hirsi, and just a single marriage application showing her and Elmi sharing an address. Why? https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
And like with the Star-Tribune, Omar’s is not answering any questions from the Examiner:
While I reported from Minnesota, @johnrobertgage made multiple requests to Omar's office on the Hill for comment. She definitively declined. (And yes, in case you wonder why I disappeared for a week, I was scoping out Ethiopian bars in Minnesota.) https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
BTW, @IlhanMN @Ilhan, feel free to email me and explain why you & your supposed ex-husband reported living together for 2.5 years when you were supposedly married by law and in faith to someone else. tlowe [at] washingtonexaminer [dot] com. https://t.co/PrQDwbauZT
— Tiana Lowe (@TianaTheFirst) June 23, 2019
Seems like a pretty easy thing to clean up, if, of course, she didn’t marry her brother.
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