Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home searched by federal agents in criminal probe
NBC News · LC · trust 44/100
One of the people familiar with the investigation said the search is part of a yearslong criminal investigation by Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. attorney in Minneapolis and the Department of Justice. The probe, which involves whistleblowers, documents and witness testimony, deals partly with immigration and fraud, but goes beyond those things, the source said.
A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement that Homeland Security Investigations, part of the Department of Homeland Security that conducts criminal probes, “executed a judicially authorized search warrant as “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”
The statement did not specify that the warrant was related to Omar, D-Minn., and did not provide further information about the nature of the investigation.
In a post on X , Omar called the search “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,” adding that over the last decade, President Donald Trump “has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
House Democratic leaders said in a joint statement that the search was “deeply disturbing and raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump’s adversaries.”
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Minority Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar of California vowed in the statement to “deliver full accountability for the rogue abuse of power from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.”
The search was first reported by Fox News. The White House and Department of Homeland Security referred questions about the search to the Justice Department.
The timing puts the search under added scrutiny: There are 22 days until the midterm elections. Omar is running for re-election in Minnesota. There’s long-standing Justice Department practice that tells prosecutors to be especially careful about actions near an election that could appear to help or hurt a candidate.
There is no blanket rule barring the department from acting within 60 days before an election, but that’s long been an unwritten practice. The written policy says prosecutors and agents cannot time investigative steps or public statements to influence an election and directs them to seek guidance when the timing could raise questions.
In 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey publicly disclosed developments in the email probe of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just 11 days before the presidential election.
After he took office, Trump fired Comey, and the administration justified his dismissal by saying he had violated long-standing principles of the Justice Department by announcing his conclusions about the Clinton case. Trump said he would have fired Comey “regardless” of the Justice Department memo outlining what it said were his missteps.
Early in Trump’s second term, Justice Department officials used the prospect of election interference as a basis to throw out a corruption case against former New York City Mayor Eric Adams in federal court in Manhattan. Adams’ indictment for bribery and campaign finance violations was filed about a year before the 2025 mayoral election, during former President Joe Biden’s tenure.
But under Trump, then-acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove moved in February 2025 to dismiss the case, writing the move was necessary in part because of “risks of interference” with the city’s upcoming elections — a highly controversial push that led to the resignation of the acting U.S. attorney overseeing the matter.
Late last month, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General recommended that the department’s leaders prioritize giving guidance to agents and prosecutors on actions that could “foreseeably affect an impending election.”
Those include “the taking of overt investigative steps, indictments, public announcements, or other actions” that could have such an impact, according to the recommendation, which was initially part of a 2018 report on the DOJ and FBI’s actions leading up to the 2016 election.
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