Tangle - The Ilhan Omar investigation.

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

On Monday, federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) searched Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) Washington, D.C. residence as part of an immigration investigation. The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security have shared minimal information about the cause and outcome of the search, but the probe is reportedly related to paperwork Omar’s father filled out when applying for legal status for their family in the United States. The congresswoman denied any wrongdoing and accused the Trump administration of targeting her for political reasons.Ad-free podcasts are here!Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Take the survey: What do you think of the claims against Rep. Omar? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Will Kaback and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I'm your host today, senior editor, Will Kback, wishing you a happy Wednesday. Today, we're turning our attention to Minneapolis, Minnesota, which is my hometown, and also a frequent subject of national news over the past six years, and really before that. Our topic today is the federal agent's search of Representative Ilhan Omar's home on Monday, and it's a story that delves into Omar's refugee background, Minnesota's Somali-American community, and the rising tide of politicized investigations. We're also going to tackle a question about press fans under previous presidential administrations, and then we'll wrap up with a nice story of a track meet in Colorado. I'm going to pass it over to Ari to get us going with the quick hits and the introduction

to today's topic, and then I'll be back in a bit to read my take. Ari, over to you. Thanks, Will. Let's get started with today's quick hits. First, Kimberly Gilfoy resigned as the U.S. ambassador to Greece amid corruption allegations. Second, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving requests for public records about the Department of Government Efficiency's operations. Third, federal filing showed that Elon Musk has donated approximately $276 million

to Republican groups since July and $366 million for the overall 2025-2026 election cycle, making him the largest known donor in the midterms. Fourth, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested an open AI employee, a Saudi national in connection with a recording device found hidden in the company's executive conference room. And lastly, the Vatican announced that Pope Leo XIV was diagnosed with lung cancer following an operation to remove a nodular lesion from his right lung. This morning, federal officials carried out a search at the D.C. home of Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar.

Moments ago, Congresswoman Omar made her first comments about the search, saying, I'm okay, make no mistake. This is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement for 10 years. Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. On Monday, federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations, or HSI, searched Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar's Washington, D.C. residence as part of an immigration investigation. The Justice Department shared minimal information about the cause

an outcome of the search, but the probe is reportedly related to paperwork Omar's father filled out when applying for legal status for their family in the United States. The Congresswoman denied any wrongdoing and accused the Trump administration of targeting her for political reasons. Let's back up. Omar was born in Somalia and fled the country as a child after the outbreak of civil war in the 1990s. She spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States at age 12 in 1995, and she eventually settled in Minneapolis. Minnesota, becoming a U.S. citizen in 2000. Omar served in the Minnesota House of Representatives before winning election to the U.S. House in 2018. She is the first Somali-American elected to Congress.

President Donald Trump and Representative Omar have an adversarial relationship. Trump has questioned her loyalty to America, while Omar has been an outspoken critic of his administration and accused Trump of racism. The president has also linked Omar to his broader criticisms of Minnesota's Somali American community, which he claims is responsible for widespread fraud and other criminal activity. On Monday, Trump claimed that he is not involved in the investigation into Omar, but called her totally crooked. Several outlets have reported that federal agents are looking into whether her late father, Nur Omar Muhammad, deliberately misstated her birth year to make her eligible for citizenship at the time he was naturalized. Federal agents are also reportedly investigating whether

Muhammad lied on his own immigration paperwork. Following the HSI search, Representative Omar's office said in a statement, this raid by Trump's DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back.

House Democratic leadership also condemned the search, saying it is deeply disturbing and raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump. adversaries. Today, we're going to get into views from the right and left on the investigation into Omar, then senior editor Will Keeback will give his take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Let's start with what the rate is saying. In the New York Post, Rich Lowry suggested there are plenty of reasons to probe Omar's past. Much of Johan Omar's story is a black box,

but we're presumably about to learn much more about it, Lowry wrote. She's always responded with angry, uninformative dismissals, even when the Minneapolis Star Tribune, not exactly a right-wing news source, has made inquiries. She gives the impression of wanting to provide as little information about her family as possible and sticking to the more important work

of maligning her adopted country. If she's being smeared, Omar should sit down with a neutral journalist and walk through the details of all this with as many documents as she can muster, Lowry said. That seems unlikely. But it's a certainty that she'll continue

to excoriate the United States, whether it's the country that welcomed her as a penniless refugee, or the one that tries to denaturalize her for alleged immigration fraud. In the Boston Herald, Joe Battenfeld asked, will Trump now turn up the heat on Omar? An embattled President Trump is undertaking a risky gambit, reigning the home of controversial squad member Representative Ilhan Omar just seven weeks before the election, Battenfeld wrote.

The liberal media is already raising questions about Trump and the DOJ's political motivations in launching the early morning raid on Omar's D.C. residents on Monday. But if the feds do file charges and find Omar's in the country illegally or filed false immigration paperwork, it would be a big blow to Democrats and the progressive movement. There is a possibility Omar could be in serious legal jeopardy. An arrogant Omar until now has failed to address her immigration and tax status. She exudes a how dare you vibe, Bettenfeld said. Will there be strategic leaks in the investigation? Will Omar's brother talk? Or will

Omar come up with conclusive evidence that she has done nothing wrong. In National Review, Andrew C. McCarthy said, I find myself rooting against both sides. I find Omar a detestable figure and have long suspected she may have been complicit in immigration fraud, McCarthy wrote. On the other hand, the Trump Justice Department lawfare is revolting. Regardless of whether she's guilty, Omar is under investigation solely because she is a Trump political enemy. That's obvious, and not just because of the Trump DOJ's extensive track record of hounding the president's nemesies. The DOJ is pursuing an immigration fraud case and a criminal prosecution arising out of any fraud in Omar's admission to the United States and subsequent naturalization

as a citizen would be long-time barred under the applicable statutes of limitation, McCarthy said. Ordinarily, the DOJ would not bother investigating crimes to sail to prosecute. But because Omar is a Trump though, that protocol has gone by the boards. Now, let's get into what the left is saying. An Esquire, Charles P. Pierce, said there are many things wrong with what the DOJ is doing. Representative Omar came to this country as a refugee from Somalia when she was 12. Whatever her father may have done, and I'm going to need a truckload of evidence that he did anything at all.

I don't know what it has to do with her, Pierce wrote, except that she has been the target of abject racial xenophobia ever since she came to Washington. This is another example of the president weaponizing law enforcement to play out the demonology in his increasingly superfluous brain pan, Pierce said. It also is a shocking violation of separation of powers. But many of the Republicans in Congress are just as rabid about Representative Omar as the president is.

Their bigotry cannot replace the constitutional order even under this president. In common dreams, Robert Reich could call the investigation an abuse of power. In a democracy, the highest, officials of one party do not build cases to pursue legislators from the opposing party, nor do they investigate their political opponents within days of an election in violation of explicit Department of Justice rules, Reich wrote. The Department of Justice guidance for protecting election integrity explicitly states that the department should not engage in investigative measures that might show legitimate voting and campaign activities or interject an investigation

itself into ongoing campaigns. The Justice Manual further states, that federal prosecutors and agents may never select the timing of investigative steps, charges, or public statements for the purpose of affecting an election or giving an advantage or disadvantage to a candidate or political party, Reich said. If Democrats were gained control of the House, they must investigate this flagrant abuse of power by Trump, Vance, and the Department of Justice. In MS now, Zishan and Leem suggested Omar is the latest scapegoat. The reality, it should be easy to do,

is that Trump sees Omar as a convenient target for his white nationalist agenda. He describes Somali immigrants as garbage and low IQ people who ought to be kicked out, Alim wrote. While it's not clear what the potential outcomes of the investigation are, it fits into the Trump administration's stated agenda to denaturalize citizens more aggressively than any other in history. It's yet another way for Trump to peddle the fiction that immigrants are the source of our national problems, Alim said.

Omar is also a prominent target because, because she's a vociferous progressive, who is aligned with Democratic Socialists in Congress on issues such as supporting Medicare for All and cutting off aid to Israel. Trump and his allies, like many reactionaries before them, appear particularly keen on co-begling their targeting of people of color with their attacks on left-wing politics.

And that brings us to Will's take. Thanks, Ari. Okay, here's my take. Monday's raid of Representative Ilhan Omar's residence is the latest example of the Trump administration's investigations into its political opponents. And just like the targets of those other probes, people like James Comey, Letitia James,

and Senator Adam Schiff, Omar's feud with President Trump is grounded in both ideological and personal grievances. I grew up in the suburbs of Minneapolis, in the district that Omar represents Minnesota's fifth congressional district. Now, she was never my representative because I was in college when she first won the seat back in 2018, but I have a good understanding of the political makeup in the area from working on some local

political campaigns in high school and also from my family and friends who remain her constituents. Somali Americans have an outsized influence in Minnesota's fifth, and state politics writ large, really. Growing up, first or second generation immigrants from Somalia were my classmates, friends, and I never really perceived them as a distinct group. They were just that, my classmates, friends, and teammates. If differences existed between us at home, they were rarely present at school or on the field. But even though it didn't register with me as a kid, Minnesota's Somali community is unique. It's the largest Somali population in the United States, and Minnesota's 5th District in particular has the largest Somali population within the state. Many, including Representative Omar and her family, resettled in the Twin Cities after fleeing the Somali Civil War of the 1990s.

And while the community is still a relatively small part of the overall population, for context in Minnesota's 5th district, Somalis make up just 3.4% of residents. They have amassed considerable political influence, similar to other immigrant communities throughout U.S. history and even earlier Minnesota history. Like those other historical immigrant communities, Somali immigrants' integration hasn't been seamless, and tensions have been brewing long before YouTuber Nick Shirley showed up to document alleged fraud last year. Now those tensions are ratcheting up, though. Just this month, alleged members of a Somali gang were charged in connection with a shoot at a homecoming football game, and the FBI arrested a U.S. citizen of Somali descent

for allegedly plotting a mass shooting at the Mall of America. After a separate incident linked to Somali gangs in which over 100 rounds were fired in a suburban area, Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said, quote, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. We're dealing with Somali American gangs right now. Meanwhile, many Somali Americans in Minnesota report feeling increasingly ostracized and scape-gracized, and scapegoated for the actions of a few. Somali American leaders have spoken openly about how issues like fraud can seem endemic to their community.

But Somalis themselves are most often the targets of these bad actors. In 2024, Kaysa McGahn, a former Medicaid fraud investigator and a Somali American, explained, quote, the conduit for fraud in publicly funded programs are the recipients who require services. Somali recipients, face language and cultural barriers. In an unfamiliar country, they leaned heavily on other Somalis.

Somali providers are in a position of trust, and some have taken advantage, end quote. As the face of the Somali-American community in Minnesota, and really the United States, Ilhan Omar has become an avatar for these problems. For the Trump administration, targeting Omar clearly communicates its broader agenda to push people like her out of the United States. It's hard to say if this particular investigation has merit based on the limited information that's currently available. We know that agents from Homeland Security investigations had a search warrant to carry out Monday's raid and that their investigation is looking into whether Omar's father falsified his paperwork when applying for legal status. We also know that the Trump administration has been promising to go after the congresswoman for immigration-related offenses for some time.

DHS Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson last month that, quote, something's going to happen in relation to Omar, adding, quote, if we can prove it, that you shouldn't have been here in the first place, we'll deport you. Whatever comes of this investigation, the administration faces an uphill battle on any immigration-related criminal charges. As national reviews Andrew McCarthy noted under what the right is saying, even if investigators found evidence, that Omar's father made misrepresentations in his immigration applications, the statute of limitations for prosecuting immigration crimes expired years ago in this case. In some, Omar almost certainly can't be criminally charged for any immigration offenses, though a civil denaturalization case is technically

possible. Still, the likelihood that she is denaturalized, let alone deported, is very slim. With that said, it's fair to note that Omar's backstory is convoluted. After fleeing Somalia, she spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the U.S. at age 12. In 2018, she told The Intercept that she became a U.S. citizen alongside her father through a process called derivative citizenship. However, just this week, the New York Post reported that Omar's staff had her birth year changed from 1981 to 1982 after she was elected to Congress.

And that's a critical change because derivative citizenship is only available to minors. And if Omar was born in 1981, she would have already been an adult when her father was naturalized. Questions about Omar's immigration history extend to other rumors about her family too. Most notably, President Trump and conservative activists have alleged that Omar improperly obtained legal status for her brother in the United States by marrying him. As documented by outlets like Snopes, the rumor originated from a post on an online Somali community discussion forum and has never been substantiated. Still, the saga is complex. Omar says she married a different man named Ahmed Hersey in 2002, but did not complete the application process for a civil marriage. She and Hersy then separated in 2008, and she formerly married Ahmed Noor Saeed Elmi, the man that's

said to be her brother the next year in 2009. Omar and Elmi separated in 2011, but did not legally divorce until 2017. Between those two dates, Omar reconciled with Hersey. But then that marriage also failed, and she's now married to a different man, political consultant Tim Minut. It's a fairly fraught relationship history and certainly fraught enough to help these rumors persist, but still, the crux is this. No evidence has emerged that Ahmed nor Saeed Elmi is Omar's brother. Other rumors like this one have also largely been disproven, but I can accept that a narrow immigration investigation into Omar's citizenship paperwork

might have merit. Remember that a court did have to sign off on the search that occurred on Monday. But even accepting that, the Justice Departments and the Department of Homeland Security's decision to pursue this raid, in spite of the statute of limitations and the proximity to the midterms, screams of ill-intents, particularly given the DOJ's traditional, though not explicit or binding, practice of avoiding public actions involving political candidates within 60 days of an election. To be clear, I don't think the Trump administration is trying to derail Omar's chances of re-election. Minnesota's 5th district is deep blue and she's going to win it this year.

Rather, this investigation is about sending a message. We're fighting to push people like Omar out of the United States. It's a playbook we've seen Trump run many times, including his 2024 remarks about Haitian migrants in Ohio, eating cats and dogs. And these days, he's saying that Somali immigrants are responsible for, quote, violence, murder, and mayhem all over Minnesota, and calling on, quote, the people of Minnesota to fight back. In targeting Omar, someone he's openly fantasized about sending back to Somalia, Trump is acting on a personal grievance, but also a collective grievance shared by many in the MAGA movement. That grievance is that people like Omar are taking over the country and that we need to push them back and out. It's a politically salient message clearly, and its power comes from real frustrations that people in this movement feel. But I draw the line

at casting an entire group of people, most of whom are naturalized or native-born U.S. citizens, as violent criminals who real Minnesotans need to rise up against to force out. Now up to this point, I've held off on sharing my own views on Omar, but I'm going to show my cards here at the end of the take. I'm not a fan of hers. She's made a slew of objectionable remarks in the past, which have mostly been criticisms of Israel that veered into anti-Semitism. But really, I'm more opposed to her political style, which emphasizes hollow clapbacks that are tailored for social media, personal digs against other representatives, and attempted gotchas. even when she's the one who's in the wrong. Of course, that style isn't unique to Omar. It's not something that she pioneered either, but really, I'm just against it in all cases. Now, it might feel nice for a moment

to imagine someone like this, getting a degree of comeuppance, but it's a fleeting and a sickly high. Barring an unforeseen development, Omar is not going to be imprisoned or deported. The big win here will be a dramatic raid that really leads to nothing. We've seen this enough in the second Trump administration

to call it what it is, wielding the power of the executive branch to target political opponents. And any personal qualms I have with Omar pale in comparison to that abuse of power. All right, that is it for my take. I'm going to pass it back over to Ari for today's question from the Tangle community,

and then he will take us home with the rest of the edition. Ari, over to you. We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Will. Today's reader question comes from an anonymous reader in San Bernardino, California, who asked, how does Trump's attempt to ban certain media outlets from the White House differ from Obama's attempts to ban Fox News in 2009?

The two events start with a lot in common, but they quickly diverge pretty significantly. In 2009, President Barack Obama was losing patience with Fox News, one of the five broadcast news stations in the White House media pool along with ABC, CBS, CNN, and NBC. At the time, Fox had been devoting much of its nightly coverage to criticism of the Obama administration to the frustration of many senior officials. White House communications director Anita Dunn called Fox, opinion journalism masquerading his news, and an arm of the Republican Party. Senior White House advisor David Axelrod called the network not really news and said, our concern as other media not follow their lead.

That quote from Axelrod seemed to indicate intent when, in October 2009, the Obama administration made the Treasury Department's Pazar Kenneth Feinberg available to every network for an interview in the broadcast pool except for Fox. Republicans criticize the administration's decision and the five networks in the polls banded together

to collectively pass on interviewing Feinberg. The administration then reversed course, granting Fox an interview with Feinberg and admitting it made a mistake. The first significant difference between this event and President Trump's attempt to ban CNN, MSN, MSN, Politico is that Obama denied Fox one interview. Trump denied three outlets access to the White House indefinitely. The differences continue from there.

Trump himself called the network's fake news that published lies. He tied the decision to the launch of his own Trump TV channel on YouTube, and he did not back down to initial pressure from lawmakers or the banned network's sister channels. Instead, the administration only relented after the network sued and were granted an injunction, which Trump vowed to fight, and the Justice Department is now investigating whether the networks violated antitrust law when they banned it together to revoke their coverage.

Obama and Trump may have both acted on frustration with coverage from outlets in the press bowl, but the actions they took are in totally different categories. If Obama's spat with Fox was a high school drama, then Trump's battle with CNN, MS now, and Politico is a street fight. That brings us to your having a nice, stay-a-story to end the podcast. Children who are deaf or hard of hearing can't always participate in athletic endeavors their peers enjoy. But the Marion's Down Center in Aurora, Colorado has created a space for them to gather for fun and competition.

In September, the nonprofit hosted its annual track and field day, bringing together school-age kids with hearing challenges for a day of sack races, long jump, egg and spoon races, and sprints. In addition to providing a physical outlet, the event offers a chance for kids to connect with others from across the state who live with similar disabilities. I'm really excited to be here, fifth grader, Angie Rass said. I like to meet other kids who have hearing loss and get to know them. Colorado Public Radio has the story, and he can find it in our show notes. That's it for today's edition. Thanks as always for being with us. We'll be back tomorrow with another edition.

Hope you have a great day. And until we talk again, peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kback and associate editor's Hardree Moorhead, Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.