Attorneys for Rep. Ilhan Omar branded a federal search of her home neither justified nor lawful and demanded the Justice Department return seized property weeks before the midterms.
Federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations executed a predawn search warrant at the Minnesota Democrat’s Washington, D.C., residence on Monday and removed property that included her cellphone and passport.
The action formed part of an ongoing criminal fraud investigation into immigration paperwork her late father completed when she was a child. A magistrate judge had approved the warrant. More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas went out as well, including to relatives.
Omar’s legal team responded with a letter that Just the News detailed, seeking the immediate return of every seized item and the preservation of any audio or video from the search.
They told the department the seizure lacked any sound legal footing and violated longstanding rules meant to keep investigators from influencing elections.
In language first carried widely after the Guardian account of the letter, the attorneys wrote that the entire effort was vindictive.
"This vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated criminal investigation into one of the president’s chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar’s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers."
They added there was “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status” and called the search “neither justified nor lawful.”
Omar herself posted on X after the raid that she was unharmed, then went further.
"Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement."
She described the search as the latest step in what she called a campaign of political intimidation. Democrats echoed the charge that President Trump was abusing federal power against a political opponent who sits on the ballot for the November 3 midterms.
The timing sits just weeks before those elections. That fact sits at the center of the attorneys’ complaint about election-season interference.
Fox News reported the Monday operation, citing sources close to the matter, tied directly to a criminal fraud look at the immigration forms filled out years earlier.
A Justice Department spokesperson confirmed the basics to multiple outlets the same day.
"Today in the Washington, D.C., area, Homeland Security Investigations executed a judicially authorized search warrant secured by the Department of Justice. This enforcement action is part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation."
That same confirmation appeared in coverage from the Washington Examiner, underscoring that agents followed a court order rather than a political directive.
Readers tracking the earlier stages of the case can revisit how federal agents first moved on the D.C. home under the immigration-fraud theory.
By Friday evening, after the attorneys’ letter circulated, DOJ spokesperson Emily Covington pushed back hard in a text message to the Associated Press.
"Our attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do."
She said the defense letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.”
The core investigative thread concerns forms completed when Omar was a child. Separate public records have shown her staff later adjusted her listed birth year from 1981 to 1982. If she had already turned 18 at the time of her father’s naturalization, that change could affect how citizenship rules applied.
Years of unsubstantiated claims have also circulated that her ex-husband was actually her brother and that the marriage existed only to secure immigration status. Omar has denied those claims. Federal officials have pulled related records as criminal exposure questions mount, a development covered when investigators examined the alleged marriage-fraud file.
After the raid, Omar was not seen in public for a stretch, which fueled online rumors she had left the country. Her husband, Tim Mynett, was photographed outside the home walking the dog and taking out trash. He told reporters the chatter annoyed the neighbors and brushed off the flight talk.
"My wife came here when she was 12 years old as a child war refugee. No concerns."
The New York Post recorded his frustration with the press scrum that followed the search.
Further detail on the specific seizure of the phone appears in reporting on how agents took Omar’s cellphone during the immigration-fraud raid.
President Trump said after the Monday search that he had no part in the investigation. “I’ve always found her to be totally crooked, personally, but that has nothing to do with me,” he stated.
In December he had described Somali Americans in Minnesota in harsh terms and said Omar “should be thrown the h*** out of our country.” Those earlier remarks now supply the political backdrop the congresswoman and her lawyers cite. They do not alter the existence of a magistrate-approved warrant or the grand-jury subpoenas already issued.
The focus of the HSI team on the immigration documents themselves is laid out in earlier coverage of how the search pointed squarely at an immigration-fraud theory.
No charges have been announced. The precise statutes under review and the full inventory of seized items beyond the phone and passport remain under seal. Omar’s lawyers continue to demand the property back and any recordings preserved. The Justice Department continues to describe the work as a standard, court-supervised criminal inquiry.
Lawful warrants signed by judges and executed by federal agents are how serious fraud questions get answered. Complaints about timing and motive do not erase the paperwork trail now under oath and subpoena.