WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Rep. Ilhan Omar asked the Justice Department on Friday to immediately return property belonging to federal agents. seized from his home this weekarguing that the search resulting from an immigration fraud investigation was “neither justified nor legal.”
In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, the Minnesota Democrat’s lawyers described the investigation as a baseless attempt to go after a longtime political target of Republican President Donald Trump, noting that the search was conducted just weeks before the midterm elections, in which Omar is on the ballot.
Omar’s lawyers wrote that there is “no legitimate basis to suggest that she violated any law regarding her citizenship status.”
“This vindictive, punitive and politically motivated criminal investigation against one of the President’s leading critics in Congress violates Rep. Omar’s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers,” Omar’s legal team wrote in the letter first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
A Justice Department spokesperson said the letter from Omar’s defense team was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.”
“Our attorneys and law enforcement partners have complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do,” department spokeswoman Emily Covington wrote in a text message Friday evening.
Monday’s search of Omar’s Washington, D.C., home drew swift condemnation from Democrats this week, as the Justice Department has historically sought to avoid any public investigation involving a candidate within 60 days of a primary or general election.
Federal authorities seized Omar’s phone during the search and issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of his relatives, a person briefed on the investigation told the AP this week.
The scope of the investigation into Omar is unclear, although Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has suggested authorities are looking into potential crimes related to his family’s immigration records. In addition, Washington US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said “Several investigations are underway” related to Omar and his office is investigating questions regarding the lawmaker’s financial disclosures.
In the letter, Omar’s lawyers accused the Justice Department of violating the agency’s longstanding policy of avoiding potentially influencing an election. They also raised concerns about whether the department properly followed all specific instructions from the magistrate judge who approved the search.
In addition to restitution of his property, Omar’s lawyers are demanding that the Justice Department preserve all audio and video recordings taken during the search, according to the letter.
Omar has repeatedly refuted allegations about her marriage and immigration status raised by conservative critics, even before she joined Congress.
According to her biography at House, Omar said she and her family fled the civil war in Somalia when she was 8 years old: “The family spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States in the 1990s. In 1997, she moved to Minneapolis with her family. » She became a legally naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000, according to her lawyers.
Conservative online sites have claimed that Omar married a brother to commit immigration fraud. Omar has largely denied the allegations. “disgusting lies” and called the insinuation “absurd and offensive.”
The search of her home came just days after Trump referred to Omar derogatorily at a rally in Tennessee as coming from a country of “crime and misery” and suggested that Vice President JD Vance “and our people” were investigating her. Hours after the search, Trump told reporters that he had “nothing to do” with it and that it was “really up to the DOJ.”
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