by Steven Richards
Rep. Ilhan Omar’s past scandals are returning to haunt the Minnesota Democrat with a vengeance as Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) expands its probe, zeroing in on whether the lawmaker misrepresented her date of birth, possibly calling into question her naturalization as a citizen.
The DOJ and other agencies have been ramping up its investigation into the congresswoman in recent days. The DOJ has reportedly issued subpoenas for several of Omar’s relatives, including her sister, Sahra Noor, as part of an effort to gather evidence of possible crimes, according to The New York Times.
The subpoenas follow a search of Omar’s Washington, D.C. home on Monday conducted by agents from the Department of Homeland Security. That search was approved by a federal magistrate judge, identified by CNN as Matthew Sharbaugh of the D.C. District Court.
The mystery of the shifting birthdate and why it matters
The progressive lawmaker’s birthdate has become a focus of federal investigators, who are examining Omar’s naturalization as a United States citizen.
Allegations that Omar misrepresented her birthdate in order to secure U.S. citizenship were first raised by one of the lawmaker’s political opponents in 2019.
Omar said in 2018 that she received citizenship through her father’s naturalization process, through what is known as derivative citizenship. “I became a citizen actually before I turned 18. My father became a citizen, and so I got my citizenship through that process,” Omar told The Intercept during that year’s election.
Rewritten history opens the door to wider examination
Central to the question of legitimate citizenship, the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library had at one point listed Omar’s birthdate as Oct. 4, 1981, which would have made Omar 18 or 19 when she claimed that she received U.S. citizenship from her father in 2000. Only minors can claim citizenship from naturalized parents, yet Omar has long claimed that she was 17 years old when she became a citizen.
After the discrepancy between the dates first surfaced, Omar’s staff requested that her birthdate be changed in the public records shortly after she first entered Congress. “On May 17, 2019, Library staff were informed by Rep. Omar’s congressional staff that her birth year was incorrect and requested that we change it to 1982,” wrote the director of the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library in a 2019 email obtained by The New York Post.
The records have since been changed to say the congresswoman was born in 1982, despite it saying 1981 for the entire time she served in the state legislature, and for months into her first Congressional term.
The Minnesota Legislative Reference Library’s entry now includes a caveat saying: “Her birth year [1982] is correct. It is incorrectly reported as 1981 in other sources. As of May 24, 2019, Rep. Omar’s congressional staff are working with Wikipedia and the U.S. House to correct her birth year in those sources.”
There are also signs that the investigation is expanding into other areas of the congresswoman’s life.
On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro announced that her office opened an investigation into Omar’s financial disclosures.
Previously, Omar faced allegations about the ballooning worth of her husband’s businesses, which increased from $51,000 in 2023 to between $6 and $30 million the following year. These disclosures were later amended, greatly reducing the valuation, and Omar would at the time blame “an accounting error.” The amended congressional financial disclosure, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, now values the Minnesota Democrat’s household assets at between $18,004 and $95,000 — a dramatic drop from an earlier filing that listed assets of up to $30 million.
Intertwined with husband’s venture capital firm
The lawmaker’s 2024 financial disclosure reflected this change, marking Omar’s net worth as high as $30 million, Just the News reported last year. The vast majority of the new net worth valuation came from her spouse’s company, Rose Lake Capital LLC, a venture capital management firm whose value swelled by millions of dollars.
The firm, which was co-founded by Omar’s husband Tim Mynett in 2022, boasts about its extensive international ties, high-powered advisers, expertise in diplomacy, legislation and politics, but reveals little about its clients or investments. According to the amended filings, Mynett’s businesses dropped in value after liabilities were factored in.
The firm’s rapid success also comes after two of its co-founders, both Mynett and ex-DNC advisor Will Hailer, faced lawsuits from former investors in other ventures who said they were defrauded by not receiving what they were promised in return for substantial contributions.
In at least one of those cases, Mynett and Hailer settled the suit by paying $1.2 million to two South Dakota cannabis companies and their investors, according to The Minnesota Reformer.
“The amended disclosure confirms what we’ve said all along: The congresswoman is not a millionaire,” Jacklyn Rogers, an Omar spokeswoman, told the Journal. “The congresswoman amended her disclosures voluntarily as soon as the discrepancy was identified.”
In September, the Office of Congressional Conduct voted to recommend the House Ethics Committee drop a probe into misconduct allegations related to Omar’s financial disclosures.
It is not immediately clear which allegations Pirro’s office is investigating.
Probing complicated familial relationships as possible immigration fraud
Omar has also faced allegations that she married a relative – in this case, her brother – to help him remain in the country. That allegation first surfaced during her 2016 election campaign for a seat in the Minnesota House of Representatives. At the same time, allegations emerged that when she married her second husband she was still married to her first.
It is possible that the same allegations are under investigation by federal authorities. Just the News filed a Freedom of Information Act request in January seeking the records pertaining to any investigations conducted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement into such allegations. ICE refused to turn over the records, citing a legal exemption for ongoing investigations.
At the time the allegations were first reported, Omar’s campaign vehemently denied them. “Allegations that she married her brother and is legally married to two people are categorically ridiculous and false,” said then-campaign spokesman Ben Goldfarb.
Just the News has not located any court records, DNA evidence, or other documentary proof that has ever substantiated that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, Omar’s legal husband from 2009–2017, was her biological brother.
The timeline of Omar’s relationships, however, is not in dispute. The 44-year-old was born in Somalia and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States in 1995. In 2002, Omar applied for a marriage license to marry Ahmed Hirsi, but did not marry him civilly, only in a Muslim ceremony. In 2008, she separated from Hirsi, and a year later married Elmi.
In 2011, Omar and Elmi separated through a Muslim divorce, and a year later she began another relationship with Hirsi. After her election to the Minnesota house, she filed for a formal divorce from Elmi in 2017. She married Hirsi in 2018. Omar later divorced Hirsi in 2019.
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Steven Richards is an investigative reporter at Just the News.
Photo “Rep. Ilhan Omar” by Rep. Ilhan Omar.
