The Ilhan Omar home search fits a very political pattern for Trump and his DOJ

Homeland Security Investigations investigators search the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar on Monday in Washington, DC. Andrew Leyden/Getty Images Donald Trump Federal agencies Congressional news See all topics Facebook Tweet Email Link Threads Link Copied! Follow It remains to be seen what kind of evidence the Trump Justice Department has against Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, whose DC-area home federal officers searched on Monday.

But it’s worth emphasizing that she’s been a frequent target of Trump, who has often trained his Justice Department on his political enemies. Trump claims he wasn’t involved in the search, but it’s highly unusual for the Justice Department to execute such aggressive investigative steps so close to an election.

And the episode fills out an increasingly remarkable pattern: Leniency for congressional Republicans convicted of crimes, and legal targeting for congressional Democrats — often based on rather thin evidence.

The pardons are for the vast majority of Republicans convicted since 2010: former Reps. George Santos, Chris Collins and Michael Grimm of New York, Steve Buyer of Indiana, Robin Hayes of North Carolina, Duncan Hunter of California, Steve Stockman of Texas, Rick Renzi of Arizona and Mark Siljander of Michigan.

The only Republican congressmen convicted since 2010 that Trump didn’t pardon have been former House Speaker Dennis Hastert, who was convicted in 2015 in a hush money case related to his alleged molestation of high school athletes (Hastert died last week), and former Rep. David Rivera of Florida, who was convicted in May and sentenced last week to 10 years in prison for a secret lobbying campaign for Venezuela.

Rivera, a longtime friend of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, has already applied for a pardon.

On the flipside, Trump’s Justice Department has targeted many Democratic members of Congress.

Some could be for legitimate reasons; now-former Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick resigned from Congress in April amid a bipartisan finding of ethics violations and has been indicted. (She has pleaded not guilty.)

But the evidence against others has been thin. That includes the six Democratic members of Congress that the Trump DOJ tried and failed to indict for cutting a video telling members of the military not to obey illegal orders (even though that’s guidance service members are already given).

All told, the Trump Justice Department has secured indictments of two Democratic members: Cherfilus-McCormick and Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, who’s accused of assaulting immigration agents during a chaotic scene at a migrant detention center last year. (The indictment does not allege the officers were injured and she has pleaded not guilty.)

The DOJ failed to indict those other six members: Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, and Reps. Jason Crow of Colorado, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania, and Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire.

And it has taken investigate steps (of varying degrees) against: Omar, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Rep. Robert Garcia of California and Rep. Eugene Vindman of Virginia.

And when it comes to the partisan breakdown of Trump’s pardons, there are few outliers among members of Congress.

Trump has pardoned two former Democratic members of Congress. But one of them was former Rep. and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was once a contestant on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice” and became a staunch Trump ally. And the other was Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, whom the president seems to have pardoned in hopes that he would change parties.

When it comes to investigations against Republicans in Congress, about the only major one appears to be into Rep. Cory Mills of Florida, who some outlets reported in July faced scrutiny. But his problems appear to be so extensive — he lost his primary amid allegations against him — that they would be difficult for the DOJ to ignore. (Trump even claimed after the congressman lost that he’d urged him to drop out of the race.)

Trump’s DOJ has also backed off previously existing investigations or cases involving Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska and, reportedly, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, according to a major recent ProPublica report.

Some Republicans have embraced Trump’s two-tiered approach to legal scrutiny, arguing turnabout is fair play after the Justice Department under President Joe Biden probed many Republicans.

But there is far less evidence suggesting those investigations resulted from any political pressure coming from the Biden White House. Trump’s DOJ has also managed an extraordinary number of failed indictments against political foes (despite indictments needing to clear a low bar).

And in contrast to the thin evidence against figures like the six congressional Democrats, New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey, the vast majority of Trump allies who were indicted wound up being convicted.