DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin says the Ilhan Omar immigration-documents probe is a “strong case” after agents executed multiple search warrants, a move the congresswoman calls political weaponization.
Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said federal agents served more than one search warrant on the same day they searched Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington home, and he called the ongoing investigation a “strong case.”
Mullin spoke Friday on the “Charlie Kirk Show” podcast with host Andrew Kolvet. CBS News reported his remarks as the probe into possible fraud involving immigration documents continues. Omar has not been charged.
The documents in question date back decades, to paperwork completed by Omar’s late father when she was a child. Investigators from DHS Homeland Security Investigations have worked with the Justice Department. Agents took Omar’s personal cellphone, and multiple relatives received grand jury subpoenas, the legal process that can lead a panel of citizens to decide whether charges should be filed.
Mullin made clear the search of Omar’s D.C. residence was not isolated.
On the podcast he said:
“She wasn’t, or it wasn’t the only place we served the warrant,”
He added:
“There was multiple other warrants served on that same day.”
A judge signed the warrants. Mullin said investigators expect to take the case to a grand jury. He stressed the department would not have moved without confidence the effort was grounded in law enforcement, not politics.
Mullin put it this way:
“But I will tell you, we wouldn’t move forward, and President Trump didn’t want to move forward either, unless we knew that it couldn’t be politically driven. Now they want to try making it political driven. This individual wants to try making it about themselves. This was about enforcing once again our nation’s laws, and it’s a strong case.”
President Trump, asked about the probe on the Monday the warrants were served, said he thought Omar was “a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ.” He had earlier said he did not know anything about the investigation.
Omar, a Minnesota Democrat and longtime Trump critic, rejected the inquiry as an attack on a political opponent. On X she wrote that the search was an effort to target enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.
She stated:
“Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement,”
And:
“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.”
She denied all wrongdoing and said she “will not be silenced.” CBS News reached out to her attorney for comment. Federal officials rarely speak in detail about open criminal investigations beyond confirming a court-authorized search, partly because of due-process rules and grand-jury secrecy.
Kolvet asked about a broader scenario: a former foreign warlord who entered the United States as a refugee with a daughter and used false paperwork that then allowed others to follow. Mullin answered in general terms about coordinated immigration fraud and did not say those facts applied to Omar’s family.
He described how false paperwork can open the door for others:
“If someone... fills out their paperwork illegally, and they claim that they are this person and this is their background, and then underneath that individual, a lot of other people come in. And I’m just saying hypothetically across a whole bunch of cases that’s out there, then that can be considered a RICO case, right?”
RICO is the federal racketeering law used against organized schemes. Mullin continued that a conspiracy to deceive the government could pull related conduct into the same case. He did not say prosecutors were pursuing RICO charges against Omar.
Criminal RICO cases generally face a five-year statute of limitations. The Supreme Court’s 1957 decision in Grunewald v. United States is often cited when courts examine how long a conspiracy charge can reach back. The documents here are decades old, so any charging decision will have to clear those timing rules.
The verified sequence is straightforward. Immigration paperwork from Omar’s childhood sits at the center of the inquiry. Earlier this week, reporting on those documents drew Omar’s denial. On Monday, agents executed multiple warrants, including at her Washington home, and took her cellphone; relatives received grand jury subpoenas. On Friday, Mullin publicly called the case strong, said a judge had signed off, and said the work was about enforcing the nation’s laws.
Omar remains uncharged. The other warrant locations have not been named. No indictment has been announced. The precise alleged fraud in the old paperwork has not been laid out in public filings cited in the reporting. Those gaps belong to an open investigation still heading, in Mullin’s words, toward a grand jury.
Immigration document integrity is not optional. When a judge signs warrants, agents serve them, and a Cabinet secretary says the case is strong enough for a grand jury, the system is doing the job voters expect, even when the person under scrutiny calls it politics.
