Prosecutors have DNA evidence in the Omar investigation, sources say, as the case moves toward a grand jury

The investigation of Representative Ilhan Omar took a harder shape on Monday. Sources familiar with the probe told the New York Post that federal prosecutors have obtained DNA evidence and plan to use it to try to prove immigration fraud, and that the search of Omar’s Washington home on October 12, together with the DNA and additional evidence, gives them a solid basis to bring charges of conspiracy to commit some form of immigration fraud before a grand jury. The probe was initiated by the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office.

The DNA goes to the oldest allegation in the file: that when Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009, she was marrying her brother, in an effort to help him get a green card that never came. One source told the Post the DNA is critical to proving it. Elmi, a British citizen now living in the United Kingdom, divorced Omar in 2017. According to the Washington Post, he applied for a marriage based green card and then withdrew the application in 2019, when US Citizenship and Immigration Services asked for more evidence about the marriage. Omar has denied the sibling allegation repeatedly since 2016, when she first ran for office, calling the claims disgusting lies at the time.

It is not clear whether the DNA was collected before or after Homeland Security Investigations searched the congresswoman’s home last Monday, when agents were seen leaving with boxes marked seized property evidence. One source pushed back on early reports that investigators had gone through trash to get DNA samples from Omar, Elmi or family members.

Two tracks are now running. The immigration track is the one border czar Tom Homan described over the weekend when he said the government has built a strong case and could seek to denaturalize Omar, who came to the United States from Somalia in 1995 and became a citizen when her father naturalized in 2000. Sources have said the suspected fraud involves either Omar or her late father misrepresenting her birth date on immigration paperwork. The second track belongs to DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro, whose office is examining Omar’s finances, including House disclosure entries that cut her reported net worth by tens of millions of dollars in the last year over an unexplained accounting discrepancy. “That judge would not have signed that warrant unless there was probable cause,” Pirro told Fox News. “If there was a crime committed, it will be prosecuted.”

Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani explained the shape a case would likely take. Pursued as a general conspiracy, older acts can be alleged as steps in the conspiracy even when they fall outside the statute of limitations, and a civil case would carry no limitations period at all. A marriage fraud conviction on its own would not endanger Omar’s citizenship the way a false statements case could, which is why the paperwork allegations matter more than the wedding.

Omar’s side has not moved. Her defense lawyers, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, have said there is no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she violated any law concerning her citizenship status, and in their letter to the Justice Department they accused the administration of targeting her for her political advocacy and demanded the immediate return of everything seized. A department spokesperson called that letter riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies and said its attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders. No charges have been announced, as of October 19.

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