Ilhan Omar says federal search means she must leave her D.C. home

Rep. Ilhan Omar says a federal search of her home has left her unable to keep living there, because her address is public and she fears people could track her children.

Homeland Security Investigations agents arrived at about 6 a.m. on Oct. 12 and searched Omar's Washington, D.C., home under a judicially authorized warrant, according to the Justice Department. Omar said her husband and 20-year-old son were there when agents began pounding on the doors. She said the search lasted four to five hours and agents seized 17 items, including phones and notebooks.

What the case is about: The government has said only that the search was part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Reporting from NBC News, citing a person familiar with the matter, says potential charges could include conspiracy and false statements in immigration paperwork. CBS News also reported that investigators were examining possible false statements and immigration fraud connected to paperwork from Omar's childhood. Possible is doing a lot of work in both reports.

Omar denies immigration fraud and says she is confident she did nothing wrong. She said agents showed her a warrant after she asked to see one, and that she could not call her lawyer until about an hour into the search. Omar described the experience as intrusive and frightening, but said the agents mostly behaved decently. They searched room by room, she said, and even put belongings back in place. Federal law enforcement, briefly moonlighting as unusually tidy houseguests, still took her phones, her husband's camera and notebooks.

The political fight: Omar says the investigation is politically motivated and rejects President Donald Trump's claim that he had nothing to do with it. Trump has long attacked Omar and has publicly discussed the possibility that she could be deported or jailed over alleged immigration paperwork misstatements. Omar became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000.

Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, said there was a “political layer” to the Trump administration's investigation. That does not establish why the Justice Department opened the case, but the timing is hard to ignore: the search came weeks before Omar seeks reelection on Nov. 3.

The human cost: Omar said moving is now necessary because of death threats and because she does not want people tracking her children when they visit. A federal investigation can unfold through warrants, inventories and court filings. For the person whose home is searched before dawn, it can also end with finding another place to sleep.

The next concrete date is Nov. 3. Voters get their say then, whatever the investigation has or has not produced by that point.