New evidence released Wednesday supports the claim that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minneapolis) married her brother in an alleged effort to help him obtain U.S. citizenship.
The story has been circulating ever since 2016 when Omar won her historic bid to become the nation’s first Somali-American lawmaker, but she has dismissed the allegations as “disgusting lies” from so-called far-right blogs.
As recently as Tuesday, Omar responded to new claims by bashing “fake journalists on bigoted blogs” who “make wild claims in their headlines and baselessly accuse people of disturbing crimes.”
“Remember, this is how Trump won. Now much of the right has caught on: when they can’t win with ideas, they stoop to hate,” she added.
We are in a disturbing era, where fake journalists on bigoted blogs make wild claims in their headlines and baselessly accuse people of disturbing crimes.
Remember, this is how Trump won. Now much of the right has caught on: When they can't win with ideas, they stoop to hate.
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) October 24, 2018
But Omar’s notion that the stories about her past are made-up smears from the “right-wing organized propaganda machines” and untouched by “real” journalists is simply false. For starters, the story has been covered by several major local and national outlets, including The Associated Press, The Washington Times, The Pioneer Press, PJ Media, AOL, WCCO, KSTP, Townhall, and more.
More to the point: Omar’s only response to the stories has been to discredit the reporters writing them as Republican extremists; she has said very little about the claims themselves.
PJ Media’s David Steinberg as well as Powerline’s Scott Johnson have been following the story since 2016, when Johnson first reported that Omar was involved with Ahmed Nur Said Elmi and Ahmed Hirsi at the same time, the former possibly being her brother.
Steinberg on Wednesday reported that he was able to find only one “Ahmed Nur Said Elmi” after “an extensive background search” with the birth date of April 4, 1985, which is the birth date provided on Omar’s 2009 marriage documents and her 2017 divorce files for Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.
This means, according to Steinberg, that there is only one possible “Ahmed Nur Said Elmi” whom Omar could have married. The question is whether or not he is in fact her brother.
Additionally, it was previously discovered that Omar’s father is named Nur Said Elmi Mohamed. But when The Associated Press asked Omar for a list of her siblings’ names, she refused.
Instead, from the beginning, Omar and her campaign have called the allegations “ridiculous,” “Islamophobic,” “anti-immigration,” “disgusting,” and “false,”
“One specific question to which Omar has provided no response is: Does she have a brother named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi?” Johnson wrote in 2016, and his question has yet to be answered.
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
