Federal Agents Search the Home of a Trump Critic
Homeland Security investigators executed what the justice department called a judicially authorised search warrant at the Washington home of Ilhan Omar, the Minnesota congresswoman, as part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation. Agents were seen carrying boxes to a van. Her office called it “an outrageous abuse of power”. The nature of the investigation remains unclear.
The timing is the part that will be argued over: this is twenty-two days before the midterm elections, and the justice department has a longstanding policy of avoiding enforcement action likely to raise an issue, or the perception, of affecting an election. Her communications director Jacklyn Rogers called it “an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies” and said “the Congresswoman has done nothing wrong”. The Minnesota Republican Tom Emmer answered: “Nobody is above the law. Accountability is coming.” Two members of the administration had trailed something of this kind — the homeland security secretary Markwayne Mullin said last month that “something is going to happen”, alleging marital fraud, and the border tsar Tom Homan has spoken of unspecified immigration violations. Ms Omar called those investigations “complete shams”. No charge has been brought and officials have given no detail of what is being investigated, which is the position to hold until they do.