Chris Hayes asked a simple question on MSNBC's "All In" Wednesday night to Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar: Is your ex-husband your brother? Her response did NOTHING to quell the rumors. In fact it made her look WORSE.
Rep. Ilhan when asked if there was some weird way she might in fact be related to her ex-husband stated: "Not to my knowledge."
That's not what you say when you are innocent! Innocent people say No, that's unequivocally false.
You know who's related to you. Everybody knows who's related to them.
Omar tried to wave it away. The allegation, she told Hayes, "started with the Somali blog. I don't know if it still exists, but somebody put in there that... he had to have been my brother or something to that effect." She called the claims "insane." Hayes obligingly helped frame the question as delicately as possible — referring to it as something "right-wing people" believe, a "blah, blah, blah" conspiracy.
Watch the train-wreck moment for yourself
This was Omar's first on-camera interview since Department of Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a search warrant on her Washington, D.C. home on October 12. They confiscated her phone, notebooks, computers, and passport. A Democrat-appointed judge approved the warrant. The investigation — which began under the Biden administration — centers on whether Omar or her late father provided false information on immigration documents when her family arrived in the United States as refugees from Somalia in 1995, and during the process that led to her becoming a U.S. citizen in 2000.
The timing of her public reappearance is worth noting. Omar's first move after going dark wasn't an interview — it was a fundraising video. Shot from the back of a car Omar begged her supporters to send her $5, $10, and $20 to help fight her legal troubles. "We're not gonna be intimidated. We're not gonna be silenced. We're not gonna be scared," she said.
Body language expert Lillian Glass — a Florida-based analyst who has served as an expert witness in federal and state courts — reviewed the footage. Her assessment wasn't subtle. "Countless signals of deception, from her raised shoulders to her shaking her head 'no' when she should" be nodding yes. Glass noted the smile was nervous, the eyes weren't smiling, and the lips curved downward. She flagged an upward inflection on the word "me" in the phrase "trying to intimidate me" as a "significant signal of deception." The lip licking, Glass said, means "the autonomic nervous system is kicking in."
Former President Barack Obama rushed to Omar's defense, calling the probe an "appalling" use of state power and writing that "the full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president." When a former president has to parachute into your district to vouch for you, the situation has moved past manageable.
The legal details keep getting worse. Federal agency letters indicate no naturalization records exist for Omar's father — a problem if her entire citizenship claim rests on derivative status through him. GWU law professor Jonathan Turley stated Omar "could get deported," noting immigration law's clarity on illegal naturalization cases. Records show her birth year was changed from 1981 to 1982, a discrepancy that matters because it determines whether she was 17 or 18 when her father allegedly became a citizen in 2000 — and whether she qualified for derivative citizenship at all.
Omar accused the Trump administration of "lawfare" and "weaponizing the justice system." The warrant was approved by a Democrat judge. The investigation started under Biden.
