President Donald Trump has spent years accusing Rep. Ilhan Omar of fraud, attacking her Somali heritage and insisting she should face consequences.
When federal agents searched the Minnesota Democrat’s Washington, D.C., home on Monday, Trump wasted little time declaring her a terrible person.
But the raid also revived a question about his own standards: Trump once accused the Justice Department of election interference for taking investigative action close to an election, and now his administration is defending a search conducted just 22 days before the midterms.
Meanwhile, conservative podcaster Katie Miller appeared eager to celebrate the operation before quickly deleting a post that seemed to give away more than she intended.
The search, part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation, has drawn scrutiny over its timing and the administration’s history of targeting Omar, while Miller’s deleted message added another complication.
Her initial celebration suggested the raid was a political victory, even as Trump insisted he had nothing to do with the investigation and the Justice Department offered limited information about its scope.
Omar, meanwhile, has rejected the allegations against her as politically motivated, accusing the administration of weaponizing federal law enforcement against its opponents.
Federal Homeland Security Investigations agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at Omar’s residence Monday morning, according to the Justice Department. A spokesperson said the action was part of an ongoing criminal investigation but did not detail the allegations or identify Omar in the department’s statement.
Fox News reported that the search was connected to an investigation into Omar’s immigration paperwork, which her late father completed when the family emigrated from Somalia while she was a child.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, said last month that the Department of Homeland Security was investigating Omar. The congresswoman said at the time that federal investigators had not contacted her.
Omar, who has been a U.S. citizen for nearly three decades and is running for reelection, condemned Monday’s search as an effort to intimidate her.
“This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies,” her office said in a statement posted on X. “The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong.”
Omar later wrote on X: “I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
Speaking outside the White House on Monday, Trump denied responsibility for the investigation and claimed federal agents were examining Omar closely, telling reporters: “I’ve always found her to be totally crooked, personally. But that has nothing to do with me. I think she’s a terrible person, just a complainer. She comes from a country that is a noth — a non-country, and then she comes over here, and she complains about our Constitution. I think she’s a terrible person. But that’s really up to the DOJ. I have nothing to do with it.”
The remarks came after Trump spent the weekend attacking Omar and Somali immigrants at a rally in Tennessee.
He described Somalia as a place of “crime and squalor” and claimed Somali immigrants had damaged Minnesota. Last week, he also urged Minnesotans to “fight back” against the state’s Somali community, writing on Truth Social that the federal government would come to their rescue if needed.
The administration has repeatedly invoked fraud cases involving Minnesota’s social services programs while targeting the state’s Somali community.
One major case involved allegations that $250 million was stolen from a federal child-nutrition program, NBC reports. Prosecutors have also brought charges in other alleged fraud schemes. No evidence provided in the source material connects Omar to those schemes.
The timing of the search has also revived Trump’s own past warnings about election-year investigations. On Aug. 27, 2024, he accused the Justice Department of violating its policy by taking action within 60 days of an election.
“It is DOJ policy that the Department of Justice should not take any action that will influence an election within 60 days of that election — but they just have taken such action. Voting starts on September 6th; therefore, the DOJ has violated its own policy — Election Interference,” Trump wrote on X.
There is no blanket prohibition on federal investigative activity within 60 days of an election. However, longstanding Justice Department guidance says prosecutors and agents should not time investigative steps or public statements to influence an election and should seek guidance when an action could raise questions about its timing.
Against that backdrop, Katie Miller’s initial reaction to the raid drew attention. Miller, the wife of White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller and host of “The Katie Miller Podcast,” replied to a New York Post report about the search with a celebratory message.
“Promise made, promise kept,” she wrote, according to the Daily Beast.
The phrase is frequently used by Trump and his administration to promote policy achievements. Miller soon deleted the post and replaced it with a more restrained message praising the federal agents involved.
The change did not go unnoticed. X user @emptywheel captured the original post before it disappeared and commented that Miller “is not going to do very well in a deposition,” the Beast reported.
Online reactions also focused on Trump’s past statements about investigations near elections.
“There is always a tweet. Always,” one user wrote.
Another attributed his hostility toward Omar to her race, posting: “He just hates her Black skin.”
A third reaction argued that the administration’s actions reflected a broader abandonment of political norms: “His vindictiveness doesn’t adhere to deadlines, and policy doesn’t matter when the highest court has given him carte blanche to terrorize people with impunity and without consequences. Old norms no longer exist, and it’s not likely they will ever return.”
House Democratic leaders also condemned the search, calling it “deeply disturbing” and raising concerns about the use of federal law enforcement against Trump’s political adversaries. They vowed to pursue “full accountability for the rogue abuse of power from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.”
