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Ilhan Omar's lawyers call search of her home unlawful, demand return of passport and phone
In a letter to federal prosecutors, the Minnesota congresswoman's lawyers say agents broke a judge's orders when they searched her Washington home. The Justice Department says the letter is 'riddled with false allegations'.
Key points
- Federal agents searched Omar's home on 12 October in an alleged immigration fraud inquiry.
- Her lawyers say the search 'was neither justified nor lawful' and want her phone and passport back.
- The Justice Department says its lawyers complied with all court orders.
Lawyers for Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, have told federal prosecutors that this week’s search of her Washington home “was neither justified nor lawful” and asked for the return of her phone and passport, which agents took away.
Federal agents searched Omar’s home in north-east Washington on Monday, 12 October, as part of an investigation into alleged immigration fraud. In a letter to prosecutors on Friday, her lawyers, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, said investigators had not given them a copy of the warrant in advance and had not contacted the House of Representatives’ Office of General Counsel, in disregard of a magistrate judge’s orders.
Advance notice, they argued, would have let Omar take advice and perhaps challenge the warrant. The judge’s procedures, they wrote, protect the rights of a sitting member of Congress and guard against the seizure of material linked to her legislative work. They said there was “no legitimate basis” to suggest she had broken any law on citizenship, called the inquiry politically motivated ahead of the November midterms, and asked that audio and video recordings of the search be preserved.
The government’s reply
The Justice Department said the letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies”. “Our attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do,” said spokesperson Emily Covington.
More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas are reported to have been issued in the case, some to Omar’s relatives. The administration is also reported to be seeking to strip her of her US citizenship.
Omar fled Somalia with her family as a child and became a naturalised US citizen in 2000. A 2019 inquiry into her immigration history, during Trump’s first term, was reported to have found too little evidence to justify a full investigation. She has long rejected her conservative critics’ claims about her status.
Days before the search, President Donald Trump attacked Omar at a rally in Tennessee and described her home country as a place of “crime and squalor”. Hours after it, he denied any part in the matter, saying it was “really up to the DOJ”.