Ilhan Omar’s attorneys told the Justice Department a federal search of her home was neither justified nor lawful and demanded the return of seized items, while the department said the letter was riddled with false claims.
Attorneys for Rep. Ilhan Omar sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice seeking the immediate return of property federal agents removed from her home and the preservation of any audio or video from the search.
The Minnesota Democrat’s legal team argued the seizure had no proper basis and framed the probe as political payback timed near the midterms. Justice Department officials rejected that account and said agents followed court orders.
The Guardian reported that the Wall Street Journal first detailed the lawyers’ letter, with the Associated Press following on Friday. Omar is on the ballot in the Nov. 3 midterms, and the federal inquiry launched just weeks ahead of that election.
Federal agents conducted the search on Monday under approval from a magistrate judge. Property taken from the home included Omar’s phone. The government has also issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to her relatives.
Coverage of the D.C. home raid and phone seizure has centered on questions about immigration paperwork and citizenship status that have followed Omar for years.
Omar’s attorneys wrote that there was “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.” They asked the department to return what was taken and to preserve any recordings made during the Monday search.
In the letter, the legal team went further on motive and timing:
“This vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated criminal investigation into one of the president’s chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar’s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers.”
Just The News reported that Homeland Security Investigations agents carried out the search and that the lawyers cast the action as political targeting of a longtime Trump critic shortly before the midterms.
The letter also accused the Justice Department of brushing past longstanding policy meant to limit investigative steps that could influence an election. It raised questions about whether investigators stayed inside the instructions set by the magistrate judge who signed off on the search.
Justice Department spokesperson Emily Covington answered in a Friday evening text message. She did not treat the attorneys’ claims as a close call.
Covington said the defense letter was “riddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.” She added a direct defense of the work on the ground:
“Our attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do.”
That reply put the department’s position in plain terms. A judge authorized the search. Agents executed it. The spokesperson said the legal obligations were met.
Readers tracking the same case saw earlier reporting on the federal search tied to childhood immigration paperwork and the scope of the warrants.
Fox News, citing sources close to the investigation, reported that the Monday search tied to a criminal fraud inquiry focused on Omar’s immigration paperwork. That account lines up with the citizenship-status fight at the center of the lawyers’ letter.
Breitbart reported that the search involved Omar’s Washington, D.C., home, that agents seized her phone, and that the inquiry linked to immigration and citizenship questions, including family paperwork, while the department rejected the letter’s allegations and affirmed compliance with court orders.
Omar has long denied old, unproven rumors about her ex-husband and immigration status. Reporting on the current probe has described her father as the person who filled out her immigration papers when she was a child. No charges are described in the available accounts of the letter fight.
Separate follow-up scrutiny has also looked at disclosures, including reporting that examined Omar’s financial disclosures a day after the home search.
After the raid, Omar posted on X that she was unharmed and cast the search as political.
“Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
She also called the search “just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation.” Democrats have accused President Donald Trump of using federal power against a congressional opponent. Those are partisan claims, not findings in the letter response from the department.
Trump, for his part, denied a role in the investigation after the Monday search. He said he had long viewed Omar as crooked in a personal sense, then added that the case “has nothing to do with me.”
Senator Markwayne Mullin has publicly described the underlying immigration-documents case in strong terms after multi-warrant activity, a stance reflected in prior coverage of officials who called the probe a strong case.
Strip away the rhetoric and the sequence is straightforward. A magistrate judge approved a search. Federal agents, including Homeland Security Investigations personnel, removed property from Omar’s D.C. home and took her phone. Grand jury subpoenas went to more than a dozen people, relatives among them. Omar’s lawyers now demand the property back and call the whole effort unlawful and election-timed. The Justice Department says the letter is wrong and that court orders were followed.
Additional reporting on the same operation has detailed how Homeland agents seized Omar’s phone in the D.C. raid while the paperwork inquiry moved forward.
Omar remains a sitting member of Congress and a midterm candidate. The department has not described charges in the accounts surrounding this letter. The lawyers want the seized items returned and any search recordings saved. Prosecutors and agents say they stayed inside the law they were given by the court.
When a member of Congress faces a judge-approved search over immigration paperwork, the country is entitled to facts, a clean chain of custody, and equal rules, not a press-letter campaign that treats lawful process as the scandal.
