Jeffries: Nothing to merit ‘extraordinary raid’ on Omar home
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday doubled down on his opposition to the federal raid on Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D) home, which came just three weeks before Election Day.
“Right-wing conspiracy theorists have been targeting Rep. Omar for about eight years,” Jeffries told reporters at a campaign event in New Hampshire, according to a video shared by C-SPAN.
“At this particular point in time, there’s nothing there relative to behavior that should merit this type of extraordinary raid, let alone inside of 30 days from the date of an election,” the Democratic leader continued.
Agents with Homeland Security Investigations — the investigative arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — searched the progressive lawmaker’s home in Washington, D.C., on Monday as part of an ongoing criminal investigation.
In a Monday statement shared on social media, Omar’s office condemned the raid as an “outrageous abuse of power” and a “weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies.”
“For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back,” the statement read. “Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid.
“The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong,” the statement continued. “No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”
Trump has repeatedly derided Omar and accused the Somali-born lawmaker without evidence of fraudulently obtaining U.S. citizenship.
His administration announced last year it was opening an investigation into allegations that Omar married her brother to obtain U.S. citizenship. The lawmaker has denied these accusations.
The president has also sought to tie Omar to an alleged widespread welfare fraud scheme that involved members of Minnesota’s Somali-born community.
Trump called the Democratic lawmaker “totally crooked” in comments to reporters on Monday.
“I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ [Department of Justice],” he said, adding, “I have nothing to do with it.”
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