‘The same people who chastise the progressive movement regularly traffic in anti-Muslim smears…’
(Claire Russel, Liberty Headlines) After a man who claimed to be an old family friend accused Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., of marrying her brother, the Muslim congresswoman slammed the accusation as “fake news” and an “anti-Muslim smear.”
The same people who chastise the progressive movement regularly traffic in anti-Muslim smears and hate speech against me and those I represent.
It’s almost as if they don’t genuinely care about online harassment.
? pic.twitter.com/jZKgYvjDl6— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) February 20, 2020
“Paying people to generate fake news stories in order to delegitimize me and those I represent isn’t a good look,” Omar continued. “Desperation is a sad mobilizing tool.”
The Daily Mail reported this week that the man who went on to become Omar’s second husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, was in fact her brother.
Omar wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the U.S., explained Abdihakim Osman, a resident of Minneapolis’s Somali community who said he was familiar with Omar’s marriage to Elmi.
“No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,” Osman said.
Omar has repeatedly denied the allegations, calling them “disgusting lies.”
But as of January, the FBI was reviewing the claims, according to the New York Post.
Two FBI agents held an hours-long meeting in Minnesota in mid-October with a concerned party who handed over a trove of documents regarding Omar’s 2009 marriage to Elmi, according to a source with knowledge of the meeting.
If Omar did marry her brother, she could be found guilty of committing marriage fraud — a felony offense punishable with a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $250,000.