MS NOW host Chris Hayes described it as a Right-wing conspiracy theory that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) married her brother. A court document referred to her as Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, and federal investigators reportedly have obtained DNA evidence that could help resolve the question. But why have people been saying for 10 years that she married her brother? It’s not just some rumor — a massive trove of evidence has long supported it.
On the other hand, Ilhan has never provided any story that explains this documentation. Democrats kept electing her anyway.
Most of the evidence came from a handful of tenacious reporters like David Steinberg, Preya Samsundar, Scott Johnson, and Ben Weingarten after a Somali blog first made the claim. Beginning when she was running for the state legislature, it was published in bits and pieces across various blogs over many years, admittedly making it hard for many to understand. Here’s a summary:
Ilhan married Ahmed Elmi in 2009 using a Christian minister, even though both are Muslim.
A Somali in Minneapolis, Abdihakim Osman, said, “No one knew there had been a wedding.”
Ilhan had already married Ahmed Hirsi in an Islamic ceremony that was not legally registered.
Ilhan filed her taxes jointly with Hirsi while legally married to Elmi, and even had another baby with him. The three all lived together. Would a scorned ex-husband shack up with the man her husband left him for? Elmi withdrew his green card petition when the government asked for evidence the marriage was real.
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Screenshots attributed to Ahmed Elmi show him calling the daughters his “nieces,” Alpha News reported.
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Ilhan’s father’s name is Nur Said Elmi Mohamed — not Nur Omar Mohamed, the name he gave U.S. officials.
Under his real name, he was a high-ranking military officer for the Siad Barre regime. Somalis were granted refuge in the United States to flee that regime. Her sister Sahra’s British marriage certificate lists that as her father’s name and occupation. Ilhan referred to him by that name on Facebook. His Facebook account used that name. A news outlet for Somali Minnesotans used that name. All of this was deleted or changed after people noticed.
Under Somali naming conventions, Ilhan’s brother’s name would end in Nur Said Elmi. Ilhan has referred to another British woman, Leila Nur Said Elmi, as her sister. For example, posting a picture with herself, Sahra, and Leila and captioning it #sisterhood.
Leila and Ahmed lived together in England in the same neighborhood — I confirmed that via Elmi’s Facebook in 2019 before he deleted it — while Ilhan, Sahra, and their father came to America.
Leila also listed Nur Said Elmi Mohamed as her father on Facebook.
In 2016, Ilhan filed a government report saying a cab driver called her ISIS when she was in the cab with her sister. That same day, a prominent Somali-American wrote that he was with “Representative-Elect Ilhan Omar & her lovely sis Leila Elmi.”
Ilhan lied under oath in divorce papers, saying she needed a divorce by “default” because she couldn’t contact Ahmed Elmi since she didn’t know where he lived or know the name of a single one of his relatives.
During that time, Ahmed was working as a web designer for Ilhan’s (and his) sister, Sahra, with whom Ilhan is close. Ahmed and Sahra at that point both appeared to live in Nairobi, Kenya.
Ilhan posted a picture of herself visiting England with Elmi during the period she swore they had no contact.
This article from @AlphaNews (FROM 2016!) is incredibly thorough and none of it has been disproven. It’s only been brushed aside by Ilhan Omar and incurious doofuses like @chrislhayes, who took “not that I know of” as a good answer and just moved on.
https://t.co/TAS4gkAkIK
— Brent Scher (@BrentScher) October 22, 2026
Ahmed Elmi denied to Alpha News’ Preya Samsundar that he was ever married to Ilhan — an excuse that contradicts Ilhan’s own explanation if he was indeed her former husband.
“Nor do I recall being married to anyone. At least, from what I remember,” he said, while confirming that he was the individual who appears in photographs with Ilhan Omar, that he has the same birthday as the person listed on Ilhan’s marriage certificate, and that he went to college in the United States.
Ilhan said she married Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her children, in 2002, in a mosque, without ever recording it with the state. She said they split up in 2008. She married Ahmed Elmi in the eyes of the state, but not in a mosque, in 2009. They did not legally divorce until 2017, even though she had a third child with Hirsi in 2012. She says she had split up with Elmi in 2011 but never bothered to divorce him, and immediately “reconciled” with Hirsi. She divorced Elmi and legally married Hirsi only after the brother-marriage allegation stood to foil her political career in 2016-2017, saying, “I am legally married to one and culturally married to another.”
Private investigators have claimed they recovered DNA that establishes the two as siblings.
A Republican consultant, Anton Lazzaro, said he hired private investigators Toltec Investigations to legally retrieve trash from Ilhan’s property, including cigarette butts and Coke cans. He provided photographs of Ilhan smoking the cigarettes in her yard in 2020, showing that the home was indeed under private surveillance. Investigators did the same with Ahmed Elmi in England, with pictures also provided.
A report from Endeavor DNA Laboratories shows that a cigarette butt from one and a straw from the other were tested for a sibling relationship, and confirmed the relationship with 99.9999% accuracy.
Lazzaro offered Ilhan $1 million to take a DNA test that would prove otherwise, but she did not.
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