Federal agents raid Ilhan Omar's Washington home
Investigation concerns immigration papers her late father filed when she was a child, Trump rally crowd chants deport hours later
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Trump targets Ilhan Omar at rally after raid on progressive congresswoman’s home – live
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Ohio crowd chants 'deport' as Trump blasts Ilham Omar
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Donald Trump at a rally
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Rep. Ilhan Omar at a news conference.
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Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) raided the Washington, D.C., home of Rep. Ilhan Omar
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Federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) raided the Minnesota home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., early Monday morning, a source familiar with the operation told Fox News Digital.
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Federal agents raided the Washington home of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar before dawn on Monday, in what the Justice Department described as an ongoing criminal investigation. According to two sources close to the investigation, the search stemmed from a criminal fraud inquiry into the Somali-born lawmaker's immigration paperwork — forms filled out by her late father when she was a child. A Justice Department spokesperson said Homeland Security Investigations had executed a "judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice," part of an investigation the department later described as criminal in nature.
By Monday night, President Trump was using the raid on stage in Youngstown, Ohio. "She comes from one of the worst countries anywhere on the planet," he said of Somalia — a country "without laws, without police, without military. All they do is shoot each other." He urged supporters to vote Republican "if you want to stop Ohio from being plundered, ransacked and destroyed like Minnesota's being destroyed," and the crowd chanted "deport." Trump linked Omar to "savage Somali gang members" who opened fire at a Minnesota high school homecoming event, and to a Somali immigrant arrested by the FBI, allegedly planning an ISIS-style attack on the Mall of America — one congresswoman's childhood immigration file, folded into a catalogue of crimes committed by others.
Omar, who posted "I'm ok" while the search was under way, called the raid the latest escalation in a decade of targeting. "For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns," she wrote. "This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced." House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and the chamber's party leadership called the raid "deeply disturbing," saying it raised serious questions about the weaponization of the federal government against the president's enemies.
The same week, a federal judge ordered the administration to temporarily halt taxpayer-funded television ads promoting the president ahead of the November 3 midterms. The restraining order, issued by US District Judge Jennifer L. Rochon of the southern district of New York, took effect at 6.45pm ET on Sunday and is meant to stay in force for at least fourteen days.
The ads stopped on Sunday evening. The raid began before dawn the next morning.