Multiple relatives of Rep. Ilhan Omar received grand jury subpoenas in an immigration fraud probe days before agents searched her D.C. home and took her phone.
Federal investigators issued grand jury subpoenas to several relatives of Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar as part of a criminal inquiry into possible fraud and false statements in her family’s immigration paperwork, sources familiar with the matter told CBS News.
The subpoenas went out on Friday. Early Monday morning, investigators from Homeland Security Investigations searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home and seized her personal cell phone.
Homeland Security Investigations, the criminal arm of ICE, is leading the case. The Justice Department is assisting. The New York Times first reported the family subpoenas.
This is at least the second active criminal investigation involving Omar and her family. The separate track focuses on the valuation of businesses run by her husband, Tim Mynett.
Just the News reported that the Department of Justice issued about a dozen subpoenas tied to a federal grand jury in Minnesota examining Omar’s immigration status.
Members of Omar’s family were subpoenaed. Omar herself was not. Investigators also sought to speak with her sister.
Federal agents had already moved on the D.C. residence under a judicially authorized search warrant in the same broader immigration paperwork case, a step covered when HSI agents searched Omar’s home earlier in the probe.
Some of the documents under review date back to Omar’s childhood and were completed by her late father. Investigators are looking at possible fraud and false statements in that paperwork.
The New York Post reported that federal investigators are examining alleged false statements about Omar’s birth date and her father’s background, issues that could lead to denaturalization if proven.
Grand jury subpoenas went to relatives including her sister Sahra Noor. D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said there are several investigations related to Omar, covering potential immigration violations and net-worth claims.
Readers tracking the citizenship angle will find more on how investigators weighed stripping Omar’s citizenship after the home raid.
Fox News reported that Omar’s congressional staff in May 2019 asked the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library to change her listed birth year from 1981 to 1982.
That request sits alongside the fresh scrutiny of immigration history and the family subpoenas, including the one directed at Sahra Noor.
"I’m ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement," Omar wrote on X.
She continued in the same statement:
"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."
President Trump said Monday he had “nothing to do with” the raid. Omar has denied wrongdoing and remains a frequent critic of the president.
Two sources told CBS News that Homeland Security Investigations took Omar’s personal cell phone during the Monday search. The seizure fits the pattern already reported when federal agents seized Omar’s cellphone in the immigration paperwork raid.
A magistrate judge in Washington approved the warrant only after extended discussion with Justice Department attorneys about protocols from the 2007 D.C. Circuit case United States v. Rayburn House Office Building.
That ruling holds that the executive branch cannot review seized information in a criminal investigation of a sitting member of Congress without first letting the member screen materials for legislative privilege under the Speech or Debate Clause.
Because agents searched Omar’s home rather than her congressional office, the warrant initially did not account for Rayburn. The magistrate ordered protocols so Omar and her counsel could review materials and assert privilege.
Attorney General Todd Blanche was aware of the search, sources said. The Public Integrity Section, which handles the nation’s most politically sensitive criminal cases, was consulted. That section was largely reduced last year and had only two attorneys remaining. It was not immediately clear what guidance the section gave before the search.
Two sources previously told CBS News that the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C., is also running a criminal investigation into the valuation of several of Mynett’s businesses. Pirro confirmed that inquiry during a Fox News interview this week.
Financial disclosures showed the value of the husband’s businesses had jumped to between $6 million and $30 million. Omar later filed an amended form that listed the couple’s joint assets as valued between $18,004 and $95,000. She blamed the gap on an accounting error.
The New York Post described a similar swing: joint assets claimed in the $5 million to $30 million range on 2024 disclosures, then revised the next year into a far lower band tied to businesses reporting minimal income.
Omar’s office has previously said she was cleared after a financial-disclosure error. The criminal valuation probe is separate from that earlier filing dispute and separate from the immigration paperwork case.
The dual tracks, immigration fraud allegations in Minnesota and D.C., plus the net-worth review, match earlier confirmation that the criminal immigration case remains active, including when Homan confirmed the ongoing investigation into those fraud allegations.
The decision to take overt investigative steps so close to the midterm elections sparked criticism. Department of Justice internal guidelines state that federal prosecutors and agents “may never select the timing of any action” for the “purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.”
A 2016 DOJ inspector general report also cited an unwritten “60-day rule” practice of avoiding public disclosure of investigative steps related to electoral matters, or the return of indictments against a candidate, within 60 days of a primary or general election.
It was not immediately clear why the government moved to execute the warrant when it did. Omar accused the administration of trying to “target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” Trump rejected any role in the raid.
No arrests were reported. Specific relatives beyond Sahra Noor were not named in the public accounts. Omar’s lawyer in the matter had not been identified in the initial reporting. Full warrant contents and the complete list of materials seized beyond the phone were not released.
What is on the record is straightforward: family subpoenas, a home search, a seized phone, childhood immigration documents under review for possible fraud and false statements, a parallel criminal look at business valuations that swung from multi-million-dollar ranges down to five-figure joint assets, and a sitting member of Congress denying wrongdoing while calling the case political.
Accountability does not stop at the water’s edge of Capitol Hill. When immigration paperwork and sworn financial disclosures both draw grand-jury and search-warrant scrutiny, voters deserve the facts without spin, and the system owes them a clean, even-handed process.
