TRUMP: OMAR’S “NOT TO MY KNOWLEDGE” IS WHAT LAWYERS TELL GUILTY PEOPLE
President Trump zeroed in on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s answer when she was asked if she is related to her ex-husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. She replied, “Not to my knowledge.” Trump told a rally crowd that is exactly the kind of line a lawyer feeds a client they know is in trouble. “When a lawyer knows you’re guilty, a question like that, the lawyer always says, pretend you don’t know,” Trump said. “That’s from a lawyer told her say that.”
The comment landed after a pre-dawn October 12 raid on Omar’s Washington home by Homeland Security Investigations agents. Agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation into immigration paperwork. They left with 17 items, including phones, notebooks, and her passport. More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas have gone out to family members. Omar later said the address is now public, death threats have made staying there impossible, and she plans to move.
A subsequent Justice Department filing in the case refers to the congresswoman as “Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” Trump has seized on that language at multiple rallies, telling crowds her name is not the one she used to get elected and sworn in, and that it matches the surname of the man long alleged to be her brother. He has demanded she resign immediately. Audiences have responded with chants of “lock her up.”
Omar has denied the long-running claims that she married her brother to help him obtain immigration benefits. She has said her name has always been Ilhan Omar and that the probe is political intimidation. No charges have been filed. The investigation continues.- DTP