Powerline Blog: Ilhan Omar Received Asylum Under False Name, Married Brother
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The Powerline blog claimed in an investigative report published Thursday that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) not only married her brother, but also received asylum as a child after her family used a false name.
The extensive blog post was written by David Steinberg, who did much of the initial reporting on Omar that was re-traced by the Minneapolis Star Tribune after a state ethics investigation revealed last month that she had filed joint tax returns for two years with one man while married to another.
Steinberg claims that Omar is actually one of five siblings in the Elmi family from Somalia. Three of the siblings were granted asylum in the United Kingdom, while two were granted asylum in the United States, including the father, Sternberg alleges.
He further alleges: “The Omar family is a second, unrelated family which was being granted asylum by the United States. The Omars allowed Ilhan, her genetic sister Sahra, and her genetic father Nur Said to use false names to apply for asylum as members of the Omar family.”
Steinberg also alleges that Rep. Omar married her alleged brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, in 2009: he had already reportedly been granted asylum in the UK. Following the marriage, he allegedly went on to study at North Dakota State University.
Elmi allegedly lived with her and with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her children and the man to whom she says she had been married in an Islamic ceremony in 2002, while he studied. He allegedly left the U.S. shortly thereafter.
Omar reportedly divorced Elmi in 2017 and legally married Hirsi a short time later. However, she filed joint tax returns with Hirsi for 2014 and 2015 while still legally married to Elmi.
Omar paid a lawyer to help her deal with the situation, the state ethics investigation confirmed. The campaign finance violation occurred when she used campaign funds to pay the lawyer for what was a non-campaign-related purpose.
Steinberg notes that Omar was 12 years old at the time her family entered the U.S., and so “had no say” in the matter. However, he adds, she is now under scrutiny for later actions as an adult, including her marriages, tax filings, and campaign expenditures.
The Daily Mail, reporting Wednesday on the allegations about Omar’s marriage, noted that the official who performed Omar’s legal marriage to Elmi was a Christian minister.
In the past, Omar has called allegations that she married her brother “disgusting lies.” She also claimed that accusations of campaign finance violations against her, some of which were later vindicated, were motivated by anti-Muslim prejudice.
Breitbart News reached out to Rep. Omar’s office for comment Thursday and received no response.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Omar on If She Regrets Her Antisemitic Remarks: ‘I Do Not’
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During an interview with “CBS This Morning,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) denied having any regrets for remarks she made that were perceived by many to be antisemitic.
The freshman Democrat lawmaker told CBS’s Gayle King her comments were not meant to be antisemitic.
“Oftentimes there are things that you might say that would not hold weight for you, but to someone else, right, the way we hear and consume information is very different from how the next person might be. Nothing I said was meant for that purpose.”
King followed up if she had any regrets for those remarks.
“I do not, but I am grateful for the opportunity to really learn how my words have made people feel and take every opportunity I have to make sure people understand that I apologize for it,” Omar added.
She said she was “certainly not” antisemitic.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor
Ilhan Omar Slams America to 400 High School Students as ‘Unjust’
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A recent profile of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said the freshman lawmaker slammed America as unjust in a recent speech to high school students, denigrated America for not meeting her expectations, and even criticized her fellow Democrats in Congress.
According to the profile by the Washington Post, Omar recently addressed 400 high school students in Minnesota about her personal experience in coming to America from a Kenyan refugee camp, and how it was nothing like she expected.
“I grew up in an extremely unjust society, and the only thing that made my family excited about coming to the United States was that the United States was supposed to be the country that guaranteed justice to all,” she told the students, according to the Post. “So, I feel it necessary for me to speak about that promise that’s not kept.”
She later told the Post about how an orientation video she watched before coming to America looked nothing like what she experienced after she came to New York City, calling it cramped, dirty, and populated by panhandlers.
“This doesn’t look like the America you promised,” Omar said she told her father. Her father replied, “We’re not in our America yet.”
She said she learned she was the “extreme other,” after she arrived in America at 12. “I was black. I was Muslim. I also learned I was extremely poor and that the classless America that my father talked about didn’t exist,” she said.
She also told students a story she later admitted could be somewhat fabricated, about an old African American lady who had been arrested for stealing a $2 loaf of bread to feed her “starving 5-year-old granddaughter.”
She told the students that the woman spent the weekend in jail, and was then led into a courtroom and fined $80, which she could not pay. Omar said she yelled in the courtroom, “Bulls—!”
The Post said her story echoed the plot of Les Miserables, and if her story is true, “it is also probably embellished.” The Post also added that “City officials said that police aren’t allowed to arrest people for shoplifting unless there’s a likelihood of violence or further crime. Typically, shoplifters are sentenced to attend a three-hour class.”
Omar admitted to the Post that she may have flubbed some facts.
“She might have had a prior [arrest],” Omar told the Post. “I’m not sure. . . . The details might not have all matched, but that’s what I remember.”
The profile glossed over reports that Omar had filed a joint tax request with the father of her children even though she was legally married to someone else.
Despite recent reports from the Associated Press and Minnesota’s largest paper the Star Tribune covering her joint tax filing, the Post wrote: “Conservative blogs dug into her complicated marital history. She and the father of her three children split temporarily in the 2000s but still filed joint tax returns in 2014 and 2015, when Omar was legally married to someone else.”
Omar, in the profile piece, criticized her colleagues for overreacting to her tweet “it’s all about the Benjamins” in reference to Israel buying off supporters in the U.S.
“There is an almost demonized view that people have of us that makes it really hard for others to see us as their neighbors, their friends and as their colleague as a member of Congress,” she told the Post, adding that such attitudes also afflicted her Democratic colleagues.
The profile also addressed Omar’s letter of support for men who were convicted in 2016 for trying to travel to Syria to fight for the Islamic State. Omar urged rehabilitation instead of prison time in the letter.
The Post wrote: “She had known other young men from school who died fighting for al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Somalia.”
The report added Omar has tried to keep her distance from the case, which she knew was “politically toxic” and “an easy opportunity for her enemies to paint her as un-American.”
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