Did Ilhan Omar marry her brother?

In as Trumpian a fashion as it gets, the president has rekindled the years-long debate: Did progressive Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) marry her brother?

Shortly after conservative icon Charlie Kirk was assassinated in cold blood by a deranged leftist, Omar reposted a video on X that called Kirk a “reprehensible human being” who was “spewing racist dog whistles” in his “last, dying words.” Republican lawmakers saw an opportunity to censure the “Squad” member and remove her committee assignments. The motion failed by a 214-213 vote.

Nevertheless, some conservatives are demanding Omar’s denaturalization and deportation to Somalia. Denaturalization is allowed in cases of “concealment of a material fact or willful misrepresentation.” To be clear, Omar will not be denaturalized, nor deported.

But amid Omar-gate, President Trump fumed that she was “SCUM,” derided her “Country of Somalia,” and asked, “Wasn’t she the one that married her brother in order to gain citizenship???”

The accusation is nearly a decade old, prompted in part by court filings and a trail of murkier evidence.

Public records show that Omar entered a religious marriage with a man named Ahmed Hirsi in 2002, separated in 2008, and then legally married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009. Elmi, a British citizen who later attended college in the US. It is Elmi who some have suggested may be Omar’s brother, an allegation Omar has consistently denied. 

The marriage with Elmi ended in 2011, but they did not obtain a legal divorce until 2017. In that same period, Omar reconciled with Hirsi, had another child with him, and even filed joint tax returns with him in 2014 and 2015, despite still being legally married to her alleged brother.

In 2020, the Daily Mail quoted an old friend of Omar, Abdihakim Osman, who claimed Omar herself had described Elmi as her brother – and admitted she married him to get the papers he needed to study in the US. Osman claimed Elmi was introduced around Minneapolis as family, and that Omar told him explicitly she was helping her brother get student loans. Omar has flatly denied this, dismissing the story as “baseless,” but has refused to provide documentary evidence to settle the matter.

In 2018, one conservative outlet discovered archived Instagram posts from 2012 that appear to show Ahmed Elmi calling Ilhan Omar’s daughter his “niece.” In 2015, photos from a London trip placed Omar alongside Elmi and relatives, all appearing under the shared surname “Elmi.” But these posts are no longer available and cannot be independently verified.

The Star Tribune tried to confirm Elmi’s identity but ran into the same problem: Somali records are difficult to obtain, and Omar herself declined to clarify.

While this scavenger hunt remains incomplete, what is beyond doubt is that Omar’s life today bears little resemblance to the humble origins she once invoked.

Ilhan Omar was born in Mogadishu in 1982, the youngest of seven children. Her father, Nur Omar Mohamed, was a colonel in the Somali army who brought the family to a Kenyan refugee camp before they eventually resettled in Minneapolis, where Omar grew up in public housing and later entered politics.

She built her brand as the daughter of refugees, a progressive outsider weighed down by student debt – the antithesis of a silver spoon Congressman. But her most recent financial disclosure revealed a net worth as high as $30 million — a staggering increase of 3,500 percent in a single year.

The source of that fortune is her most recent husband, Tim Mynett. His venture capital firm, Rose Lake Capital, ballooned from under $1,000 in 2023 to as much as $25 million by the end of 2024. The firm’s board is stacked with powerful names, including former senator and ambassador to China Max Baucus.

Rose Lake Capital’s website once bragged about structuring “legislation” before that word was quietly removed. It now claims $60 billion in assets under management. Around the same time Rose Lake took off, Mynett’s California winery, eStCru, jumped from being worth just $50,000 to as much as $5 million. Both companies have faced lawsuits alleging fraud, which have since been settled.

The overlap with Omar’s official role is clear. After the launch of Rose Lake, Omar formed a congressional US-Africa Policy Working Group. She and Mynett have since appeared at events promoting investment in Africa – exactly the kind of opportunity Rose Lake now pursues. At face value the arrangement is indistinguishable from influence-peddling.

The same Omar who has scorned politicians for leveraging their office for gain now appears to be doing it herself, handsomely. In America, the socialists have a funny way of always cashing in.

So, back to Trump’s accusation. Did Ilhan Omar marry her brother? As it stands, it’s impossible to say one way or the other. Omar continues to deny the allegation as baseless.

What is certain is that Omar has prospered enormously in America, moving from refugee housing to the halls of Congress to a personal fortune worth tens of millions.

That story is perhaps the greater indictment. The congresswoman who speaks endlessly of justice and equity appears to have mastered the very Washington tricks she pretends to loathe.