Ilhan Omar’s Deleted 2013 Tweet Could Be Key Evidence In Federal Probe

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) once posted a Father’s Day message that appears to identify her father as “Nur Said,” a name that closely matches that of her ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

“Happy Father’s Day to my aabo Nur Said, I am forever grateful to Allah for giving me the best father …” Omar wrote in June 2013. She removed the post on the morning of Sept. 17, 2019.

Omar deleted the 2013 post six years later, and it has now resurfaced as federal investigators examine her identity and immigration records.

Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Oct. 12 as part of a criminal investigation into possible false statements on her immigration and naturalization documents. Court records tied to the search warrant, first obtained by Fox News Digital, refer to the congresswoman as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a.k.a. Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” The filing does not explain why it uses that name, and it does not show that she used a false identity.

The name Omar gave her father in the 2013 post, Nur Said, also appears in the name the federal filing now uses.

Two people familiar with the investigation told Fox News Digital that “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi” may be Omar’s legal name, however, her office disputes that account.

Fox News Digital asked Omar on Friday for her real name. “Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, you know it,” Omar said. “It’s Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.”

Other records list a different name for her father. A Congressional Black Caucus memorial post following his death in 2020 identified him as “Nur Omar Mohamed.” Some reports, however, have used “Nur Said.” In one example, Oxford University historian Mohamed Haji Ingiriis referred to him by that name in a New York Post article about his alleged military service.

“He was a full colonel in Siad Barre’s military regime,” Ingiriis told The Post. “Ilhan’s father was never an educator. Nur Said was a military officer who was loyal to the regime until the end. He was part and parcel of those who caused and created the mayhem they ‘fled’ to live comfortably in the United States.”

Fox News has not independently confirmed whether the father’s name is Nur Said Elmi Mohamed, as alleged, or Nur Omar Mohamed. Omar’s office did not answer Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the deleted post.

Nur died in June 2020 at age 67 from complications with COVID.

The Daily Caller first reported on an archived copy of the post in 2019. Questions about Omar’s immigration records first drew wide attention that same year.

A statement attributed to Omar’s spokesperson has also circulated online again. It says “Nur Said” was her father’s childhood nickname and that he maintained a public page under that name. According to the same statement, Omar deleted the tweet after her family received threats.

A spokesperson for Rep. Ilhan Omar sends me the following statement on her deleted tweet from 2013 pic.twitter.com/JGshLtjdn0

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) September 17, 2019

Omar and her office have repeatedly denied that Elmi is her brother. She denies any wrongdoing and has described the federal probe as a political attack.

On Thursday, her spokesperson said that Omar has “repeatedly and unequivocally denied” what the spokesperson called a “baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory” that she married her brother.

However, Omar’s recent comments undermined those denials. On Wednesday, during an interview with Chris Hayes on MS NOW, Hayes asked Omar whether her one-time husband might be a “distant relative.”

“Not to my knowledge,” Omar said.

Omar and Elmi divorced in 2017. She legally married Ahmed Hirsi in 2018.

The investigation now centers on what Omar stated on her federal immigration and naturalization paperwork. A former Minnesota federal immigration judge said that if investigators prove Omar knowingly used a false name on federal forms, she could face scrutiny under the federal false-statements law, 18 U.S.C. § 1001.