Ilhan Omar says “not to my knowledge” when asked if she is related to ex-husband

In first interview with MS NOW Chris Hayes since DC raid, Omar calls marriage allegations “insane.”

MS NOW: “Who was this man that was your husband? When did they start saying that he was your brother? Why?”

Ilhan Omar: “It started with the Somali blog that I don’t know if it still exists, but somebody put in there that, you know, that he had to have been my brother or something to that effect. And right-wing conspiracy theorists in Minneapolis got a hold of it, and they just kind of went and, like, found random people who were like, ‘She introduced us.’ You know, ‘She introduced him to us and said he was her brother,’ which is, you know, insane. I mean, I don’t know those people that they talk about.”

MS NOW: “You were not related to him at all.”

Ilhan Omar: “Not to my knowledge.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) called allegations that she married her brother “insane” but did not fully rule out a family link to her ex-husband, the New York Post reports.

In her first interview since federal agents searched her Washington home last week, Omar was asked by MS NOW’s Chris Hayes whether there was any kernel of truth to the claim. “Not to my knowledge,” she said. She said the rumors about her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi began on a Somali blog and were picked up by right-wing conspiracy theorists.

Omar described herself as working class, citing a 2016 Toyota Camry and rented homes in Washington and Minneapolis. Asked about documents suggesting a combined net worth of about $30 million for her and her husband, she has said that figure was a mistake and was revised down. She said she can no longer live at the Washington home because its address became public amid death threats.

Homeland Security Investigations agents took her phone, computers and passport in the search. Sources told the Post the probe, led from the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office, may involve false statements about her birth date on immigration documents. The Wall Street Journal reported more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to relatives. A separate financial probe is run from the DC US Attorney’s Office.

Omar denies committing fraud and says she became a citizen at 17 through her father.

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