{"id":376407,"date":"2026-10-18T20:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376407\/"},"modified":"2026-10-18T20:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-18T20:38:13","slug":"obama-defends-rep-ilhan-omar-amid-trump-administration-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/376407\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama Defends Rep. Ilhan Omar Amid Trump Administration Inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">Former President Barack Obama defended Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, on social media on Sunday, saying that the Trump administration\u2019s intensifying investigation of the lawmaker amounted to \u201ctransparent efforts to intimidate\u201d her.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can\u2019t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say,\u201d <a class=\"css-povzk\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BarackObama\/status\/2111819687524774170\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Mr. Obama said in his post<\/a>. \u201cBut that\u2019s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">Federal agents <a class=\"css-povzk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/10\/12\/us\/politics\/ilhan-omar-home-searched.html?eafs_enabled=false\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">searched Ms. Omar\u2019s Washington home<\/a> and <a class=\"css-povzk\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2026\/10\/13\/us\/politics\/justice-dept-ilhan-omar-subpoenas.html\" title=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">issued subpoenas<\/a> to relatives last week, scouring her family\u2019s history for evidence of fraud and false statements in immigration paperwork.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">Ms. Omar was born in Somalia in the early 1980s, and her family was admitted to the United States as refugees in the mid-1990s after fleeing civil war. Her immigration history has been investigated by federal authorities for over a decade, but those inquiries have not led to charges.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\"><a class=\"css-povzk\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/IlhanMN\/status\/2109675562344087792\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Ms. Omar condemned<\/a> the search, calling it an effort by the administration \u201cto target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.\u201d She has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing on immigration matters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">In the weeks before elections, federal law enforcement officials typically avoid taking overt investigative steps, like executing search warrants and issuing subpoenas, that could be seen as trying to help or hurt a candidate.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">The search and subpoenas, coming weeks before the midterm elections and as President Trump has issued attacks against Ms. Omar, have raised questions about whether the investigation was ramping up because of political pressure from the White House.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-12m5bll evys1bk0\">Mr. Obama said it was. \u201cThe full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former President Barack Obama defended Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, on social media on Sunday, saying that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":376408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[80709,1452,138426,9204,46937,5800,9,11,10,12423,136629,78051,15945,1069,1876],"class_list":["post-376407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-barack","tag-donald-j","tag-ilhan","tag-immigration-and-emigration","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-minnesota","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-obama","tag-omar","tag-search-and-seizure","tag-subpoenas","tag-trump","tag-united-states-politics-and-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/376408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}