DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin says the case against Rep. Ilhan Nur Said Elmi (D-MN) is “large” and involves multiple people, pushing back on claims that the Trump administration is targeting the Democrat congresswoman for political reasons.
“This is a large case that we have presented to the DOJ,” Mullin said in an interview with Fox News. “We’re enforcing our nation’s laws, and we’re going to do that. We’re not weaponizing. We’re not using political theater on this,” Mullin said, adding that investigators will enforce the law regardless of politics.
“And if Congress doesn’t like those laws, they can change it, and we’ll also enforce those laws. But if somebody committed a crime, we don’t look at that any different. I don’t care where you’re seated. I don’t care how you’re registered to vote. I don’t care what your job title is. We use it equally,” he insisted.
His comments come after The New York Times reported that federal authorities investigated Omar’s 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2016, during the Obama administration. Current and former officials told the newspaper that prosecutors declined to pursue a felony marriage-fraud case because the five-year statute of limitations had expired.
Omar, whose real name is “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi,” according to the Department of Justice, married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009, and the couple legally divorced in December 2017. She has repeatedly denied that Elmi, who is reportedly gay, is her brother.
“This isn’t just a case that’s targeting one individual. This is a large case that we have presented to the DOJ, and the DOJ is leading the investigations,” Mullin told Fox.
The allegations raise two potential criminal issues for the Democrat congresswoman, as federal law prohibits knowingly entering a marriage only to obtain a green card, and all 50 states prohibit siblings from marrying.
Omar’s former husband and suspected brother obtained a provisional two-year green card after he married Omar in 2009. He attempted to make his status permanent but abandoned the process after immigration officials requested additional information regarding his marriage to Omar. Elmi then left the United States and moved to the United Kingdom, The Daily Wire reported.
As Omar faces a federal investigation into her citizenship, more than a hundred Democrats signed a letter that accused both the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department of weaponizing law enforcement against Omar because of her opposition to President Donald Trump, and argued that the investigation could potentially sway voters in her reelection bid.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) signed the letter, but roughly 40 House Democrats did not, The Daily Wire reported.
Among those who did not sign the letter were Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Tom Suozzi (D-NY), Laura Gillen (D-NY), and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ).
On FOX, Mullin rejected claims of political prosecutions, pointing to how the Biden DOJ handled investigations into President Trump.
“We’re not the Democrat Party that came after their political enemies like President Trump, and they know they weaponized our DOJ and FBI. And it’s shameful, absolutely shameful, that they did that,” he said.
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