The hard work done by Scott Johnson of PowerLineBlog and Daniel Steinberg of our sister site, PJMedia, and Preya Samsundar, who now runs communications for the GOP in Minnesota and Iowa may finally be bearing fruit.

Thanks to their reporting, ethics charges have been filed with the House Ethics Committee.

BREAKING: @JudicialWatch Files House Ethics Complaint against Rep. Ilhan Omar Over Potential Immigration, Marriage, Tax, and Student Loan Fraud https://t.co/72HKtMpq0Q

— Tom Fitton (@TomFitton) July 23, 2019

These are some of the highlights:

he evidence developed against Rep. Omar was the result of a three-year-long investigation in both the United States and the United Kingdom by Mr. Steinberg and his investigative reporter colleagues Preya Samsundar and Scott Johnson. It is supported by information gathered from public records, social media postings, genealogy databases, computer forensic analysis, unaltered digital photographs, discussions between the investigative reporters and the subjects of the investigation themselves, and information supplied by confidential sources within the Somali-American community.

Documented-based reporting by Steinberg, et al. has developed the following information: Rep. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, a citizen of the United States, married her biological brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, a citizen of the United Kingdom, in 2009, presumably as part of an immigration fraud scheme. The couple legally divorced in 2017. In the course of that divorce, Ms. Omar submitted an “Application for an Order for Service by Alternate Means” to the State of Minnesota on August 2, 2017 and claimed, among other things, that she had had no contact with Ahmed Nur Said Elmi after June 2011. She also claimed that she did know where to find him. The evidence developed by Mr. Steinberg and his colleagues demonstrates with a high degree of certainty that Ms. Omar not only had contact with Mr. Elmi, but actually met up with him in London in 2015, which is supported by photographic evidence. Ms. Omar signed the “Application for an Order for Service by Alternate Means” under penalty of perjury. The very document that Ilham Omar signed on August 2, 2017 bears the following notation directly above her signature: “I declare under penalty of perjury that everything I have stated in this document is true and correct. Minn. Stat. § 358.116.”

Of particular importance are archived photographs taken during a widely reported trip by Ilhan Omar to London in 2015, posted to her own Instagram account under her nickname “hameey”, in which she poses with her husband/presumed brother, Ahmed Elmi. These photographs from 2015 are documentary evidence that in fact she met up with Mr. Elmi after June 2011 and before the date she signed the divorce document in August 2017, thereby calling into question the veracity of her claim that she had not seen Mr. Elmi since June 2011.

Rep. Omar’s potential crimes far exceed perjurious statements made in a Minnesota court filing.

Rep. Omar’s conduct may include immigration fraud. It appears that Rep. Omar married her brother in order to assist his emigration to the United Stated from the United Kingdom. The same immigration fraud scheme may have aided Mr. Elmi in obtaining federally-backed student loans for his attendance at North Dakota State University. Mr. Elmi and Rep. Omar simultaneously attended North Dakota State University and may have derived illicit benefits predicated on the immigration fraud scheme.

The State of Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board has already determined that Rep. Omar violated state campaign finance laws for improper use of campaign funds. She was forced to reimburse her campaign thousands of dollars. More significantly, the Board discovered that the federal tax returns submitted by Rep. Omar for 2014 and 2015 were filed as “joint” tax returns with a man who was not her husband, named Ahmed Hirsi, while she was actually married to Ahmed Elmi.

As a footnote, it is great to see that the reporting referenced in the ethics complaint is that by the people who broke the story and kept it alive and not the shameless near-plagiarism by a dilettante who tried to scab credit for the story without providing a whit of attribution.

Minnesota state representative Steve Drazkowski, whose complaint to the Minnesota State Campaign Finance Board led to Ilhan Omar’s fraudulent tax returns being discovered, has also filed a complaint.

NEW: GOP State Rep. @SteveDraz , whose complaint led to MN State Campaign Finance board investigation of @IlhanMN , files formal request for congressional ethics probe. Documents shared publicly HERE ===> https://t.co/GahZ6Yqz5d

— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) July 23, 2019

What happens here? Probably not very much in the short run. The Ethics Committee is evenly divided and to do anything someone has to break party ranks. The only way that happens with the Democrats is if Nancy Pelosi tells them to do so. Otherwise, they are going to close ranks and protect a Democrat member. Based on past history, though, often a House Ethics Committee complaint serves as the proximate cause of a federal investigation.

As Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton points out, there is ample evidence of fraud and perjurious statements to warrant a Justice Department probe. If Omar were a white male, the grand jury would already be seated.

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