The legal husband of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and the father of her three children, Ahmed Hirsi, has confirmed to friends that the congresswoman married her brother in a fraudulent immigration scheme, according to sources who spoke to Powerline blogger Scott Johnson.
Hirsi has said, however, that he did not know at the time that Omar was married to her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, Johnson wrote Tuesday.
The Powerline blogger said his sources in the Somali community in Minnesota further say Omar is threatening Hirsi that he would be in trouble along with her if the truth were to come out.
The Somali sources say Omar has asked Hirsi to state publicly that all is well with their marriage even though it is finished, Johnson said. They are living apart and have been divorced under Islamic law, although they remain legally married.
Omar was the target of a complaint filed last week with the Federal Election Commission accusing her of illegally using campaign funds to pay for travel expenses for a Democratic political consultant whose wife accuses him of having an extramarital affair with the Muslim congresswoman.
The National Legal and Policy Center alleges in the complaint filed last Wednesday that Omar used campaign funds for a “romantic companionship” with Tim Mynett unrelated to her work as a lawmaker, reported WCCO-TV in the Twin Cities.
Mynett’s company, E Street Group, was paid about $230,000 for travel expenses beginning in early April.
It was in April, Mynett’s wife, Beth Mynett, charges in divorce papers, that her husband became “romantically involved with and in love with” Omar.
In a previously scheduled sit-down interview, a WCCO reporter asked Omar if the reports of her dating a man who is not her husband are true.
She denied the claim and said she would not comment further on personal matters.
Omar: Claim ‘absolutely false and ridiculous’
President Trump last month repeated the claim that Omar’s union with Elmi was illegal immigration fraud because he is her brother. Omar has called the allegation “absolutely false and ridiculous.”
However, as WND reported, investigative reporter David Steinberg, Powerline and others have published over the past three years substantial evidence that Omar married her brother to defraud U.S. immigration and perjured herself eight times in her divorce statement. In addition, a Minnesota state agency fined her for filing joint tax with Hirsi while she was legally married to Elmi.
Omar says she first married Hirsi in an Islamic ceremony in 2002, but six years later they “reached an impasse in our life together” and divorced. In 2009, she legally married Elmi. She says she reconciled with Hirsi in 2012. But she didn’t divorce Elmi until 2017, after evidence emerged in her runs for office that Elmi is her biological brother.
‘The evidence is overwhelming’
In July, WND reported the watchdog group Judicial Watch filed a House Ethics complaint against Omar calling for a congressional investigation of allegations of perjury, immigration fraud, marriage fraud, state and federal tax fraud and federal student loan fraud.
“The evidence is overwhelming Rep. Omar may have violated the law and House rules,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The House of Representatives must urgently investigate and resolve the serious allegations of wrongdoing by Rep. Omar.”
WND also reported the local daily newspaper that has provided enthusiastic coverage of Omar, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, says the congresswoman has been uncooperative with attempts to resolve the accusation.
The findings of Steinberg, Preya Samsundar and Powerline’s Johnson, Judicial Watch said, are “supported by information gathered from public records, social media postings, genealogy databases, computer forensic analysis, unaltered digital photographs, discussions between the investigative reporters and the subjects of the investigation themselves, and information supplied by confidential sources within the Somali-American community.”
In her application for divorce in 2017, she swore under penalty of perjury, among that, other things, she had had no contact with Elmi after June 2011 and didn’t know where to find him.
However, evidence, including now deleted social media posts, compiled by Steinberg and others indicates she not only had contact with Elmi but also met with him.
The apparent immigration fraud scheme, Judicial Watch said, also may have helped Elmi obtain federally backed student loans for his attendance at North Dakota State University.
The State of Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board already has determined that Omar violated state campaign finance laws for improper use of campaign funds. She was forced to reimburse her campaign thousands of dollars.
More significantly, Judicial Watch said, the board discovered she filed joint tax returns with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015 while she was legally married to Ahmed Elmi.