Omar’s attorneys demand return of property seized in search of home

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for Rep. Ilhan Omar asked the Justice Department on Friday to return property seized from her home this week, arguing that the search stemming from an immigration fraud investigation was “neither justified nor lawful.”

In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, lawyers for the Democratic representative from Minnesota described the investigation as a baseless effort to go after a longtime political target of Republican President Donald Trump, noting that the search was conducted just weeks before the midterm elections, in which Omar is on the ballot.

Omar’s attorneys wrote that there is “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.”

“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,” Omar’s legal team wrote in the letter first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

A Justice Department spokesperson said the letter from Omar’s defense team was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.”

“Our attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do,” department spokesperson Emily Covington wrote in a text message Friday evening.

Monday’s search of Omar’s Washington, D.C., home this week drew swift condemnation from Democrats, as the Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public investigative actions involving a candidate within 60 days of a primary or general election.

Federal authorities seized Omar’s phone in the search and have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of her relatives, a person briefed on the probe told The AP this week.

The scope of the investigation into Omar is unclear, though Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has suggested that authorities were examining potential crimes related to her family’s immigration paperwork. Separately, Washington’s U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said “there are several investigations going on” related to Omar and her office is probing issues concerning the lawmaker’s financial disclosures.

In the letter, Omar’s attorneys accused the Justice Department of violating longstanding agency policy designed to avoid potentially influencing an election.

The search of her home came just days after Trump referred pejoratively to Omar at a rally in Tennessee as coming from a country of “crime and squalor” and suggested that Vice President JD Vance “and our people” were investigating her. Hours after the search, Trump told reporters he had “nothing to do” with it and it’s “really up to the DOJ.”