Omar DID tell friends her 2nd husband was brother

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. (video screenshot)

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who has had more scandal in her short first term than many members of Congress experience in a career, "told friends years ago that the man who went on to become her second husband was in fact her brother," a report says.

The Daily Mail said that is known because "one of those friends has come forward to reveal exactly how Omar and Ahmed Elmi scandalized the Somali community in Minneapolis."

The report said Abdihakim Osman has confirmed that Omar "said she wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the United States, at a time when she was married to her first husband Ahmed Hirsi. But hardly anyone realized that meant marrying him."

Osman, 40, told the publication, "No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later."

Omar repeatedly has called the allegations that she married her brother "disgusting lies."

In October, she filed for divorce from husband Ahmed Hirsi after it was reported she was accused of having an affair with campaign adviser Tim Mynett.

Hirsi, the father of Omar's three children, remarried just 37 days after their divorce was finalized in November.

Records show Omar and Hirsi were engaged in 2002 and united in a Muslim ceremony but never were legally married. They had two children then "split" in 2008. The next year, Omar married Elmi.

Allegations that Elmi is Omar's brother emerged in 2016 in a since-deleted post to the Somali Spot message board by a user named AbdiJohnson. Power Line blogger Scott Johnson reported the claim, which later was repeated by President Trump.

Omar and Elmi split in 2011, and Omar returned to Hirsi, and their third child was born in 2012.

However, Omar didn't divorce Elmi until 2017.

As WND reported, Steinberg, Power Line's Johnson and investigative reporter Preya Samsundar 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.

A Minnesota state agency has fined her for filing joint tax returns with Hirsi while she was legally married to Elmi.

'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 in July. "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, Samsundar and 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.

The Mail reported, "Osman's revelations are sure to renew calls for an investigation into the Minnesota freshman representative who has repeatedly refused to answer questions on her marriage to Elmi."

The report said rumors long have held Omar and Elmi are siblings, "but because of a lack of paperwork in war-torn Somalia, positive proof has never been uncovered."

The FBI reportedly is reviewing evidence that Omar married her brother in an immigration-fraud scheme.