Federal agents raided the Washington, D.C. home of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of President Donald Trump’s fiercest critics, early Monday morning.
As per reports, US immigrations agents with Homeland Security Investigations carried out the search, with the Department of Justice stating that it is part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
According to Fox News, the probe concerns suspected fraud in Omar’s immigration paperwork. At the time of writing, Omar has not been charged with any crime, while it unclear if she was at home when the search was carried out.
Taking to social media, Omar, a Democrat who is an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, posted a defiant message where she insisted she “will not be silenced.”
She also described the search as “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement”.
For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” Omar said in the post.
“This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Trump, meanwhile, told reporters yesterday that he had “nothing to do” with the investigation into Omar, referring to her as a “complainer” and “terrible person”.
Rep. Omar was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a child refugee. She later became a citizen, and in 2018 became the first Somali American elected to Congress.
The 44-year-old has long faced controversial claims that she married her own brother as part of an immigration scheme. Omar has firmly denied this, while the allegation has never been proven.
According to reports, Monday’s raid on her Washington home did not come out of nowhere. In September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and White House border czar Tom Homan both publicly confirmed that an investigation into the congresswoman was underway.
For now, it is unclear what the agents found during their search and whether any charges will follow.
Omar’s communications director, Jacklyn Rogers, slammed the search as “an outrageous abuse of power” by the Trump administration, insisting that Omar “has done nothing wrong”.
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