Will Chamberlain talks with Ben Weingarten about the federal investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar, the questions about her father's refugee application and her own naturalization that appear to sit behind the recent search of her home, and what a case to strip her citizenship could look like. The conversation also digs into the evidence that the man she married is her brother, Minneapolis's Somali community, fraud in Somali refugee resettlement, and the red-green alliance.
In this episode:
Ben explains how a column applying the Russiagate standard of links and ties to Omar grew into his 2020 book, American Ingrate
He argues that Omar personifies the red-green alliance between the progressive left and Islamists, and that the Democratic Party has moved in her direction since
He describes her father as a senior military officer in Siad Barre's Marxist regime who, according to reporting, presented himself as an educator when the family sought refugee status
Will lays out the legal theory that concealing service in a communist regime could be enough on its own to undo both her father's naturalization and hers
Ben describes Minneapolis's Somali community as clannish and insular, and says nearly everyone he spoke with there feared for their safety if they talked about Omar
He walks through the evidence that the man she legally married is her brother, including shared addresses, social media posts in which the man called her children his nieces and nephews, and the family naming convention
He says her testimony in a Minnesota campaign finance case that she had lost contact with the man conflicts with social media messages between them
Will and Ben discuss a new Washington Post report that the man withdrew a petition for permanent residency after immigration officials asked about the marriage, and Ben connects it to a 2016 FOIA request by Omar's immigration lawyers
Ben explains how the birth year in her official biography changed from 1981 to 1982, and why that one year matters for whether she qualified for citizenship through her father
Will argues that even if the marriage fraud is too old to charge, it could unravel the story her family told when it first came to the United States
Ben discusses why part of the family appears to have settled in the UK, and the fraud that led the State Department to suspend a Somali refugee program in 2008
He closes on the Islamist networks backing Omar and similar candidates, and recalls the longtime incumbent she unseated, Phyllis Kahn, telling him Omar was unbeatable in the district
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8
Ben Weingarten: The Federalist, author of American Ingrate · @bhweingarten
Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain
Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod
00:00 Her father's past
02:42 Why Ben wrote American Ingrate
03:07 Ilhan Omar and the red-green alliance
07:58 Who was Ilhan Omar's father?
13:27 Could her father's past be enough to denaturalize her?
14:34 Inside Minneapolis's Somali community
20:55 The evidence that she married her brother
28:43 The Washington Post's buried revelation
29:30 Omar's immigration lawyers and the 2016 FOIA request
31:26 Two husbands at one address
34:03 1981 or 1982? Her birth year and her naturalization
38:01 Why the marriage could unravel the whole story
39:25 Why did the family split between the UK and the US?
43:14 Fraud in Somali refugee resettlement
48:51 The Islamist machine behind Omar
