Here in the New York City area, Republican Rep. George Santos is in the crosshairs. The new congressman was caught embellishing his resume and life story, and now the drums are pounding, the hounds are baying, protestors are marching, and war cries ring throughout metro-area newscasts.
Santos is being targeted just as soundly in Washington, D.C., where the word has gone out that he is persona non grata. One New York news anchor claimed on Monday that Santos’s name and office hours have yet to be installed on his D.C. office door. Plenty of politicians are sanctimoniously calling for Santos to stand down, both Democrats and Republicans.
But one Democrat rep who is usually quite outspoken is oddly quiet, keeping a low profile almost as if she’s hoping not to be noticed while the debate rages on.
It’s important to note that what George Santos did — lying about himself — is not illegal. The entire argument for insisting he steps down is an ethical one. But the same cannot be said about one of the most egregious liars in the House, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.). Omar didn’t just lie about her background; she lied in order to commit outright fraud.
Beginning in 2009, Omar engaged in a fraudulent marriage to a British citizen who is almost certainly her brother in order to obtain legal residency, assistance, and educational U.S. benefits for him. She did this while she was already married to first husband Ahmed Hirsi.
Omar married Hirsi (the father of her children) in 2002 in a Muslim religious ceremony, which the couple did not register with the state. In the late 2000s, Omar (and sometimes her husband, Hirsi) were often in the company of British citizen Ahmed Elmi, who had come to Minneapolis. Omar, then 26, and Elmi, then 23, were married in 2009, in a Hennepin County, Minn., office. Christian minister Wilecia Harris conducted the ceremony — inexplicable for the ostentatiously Muslim Omar.
Omar claimed she was separated from her first husband, Hirsi, at the time. She and husband-brother Elmi shared an address in a north-Minneapolis suburb, and he attended her alma mater, North Dakota State University, allegedly with financial aid Omar helped him apply for. After he graduated, Elmi moved into public housing, was eventually evicted, and returned to the UK in 2013.
Meanwhile, Omar claimed to have split from Elmi in 2011, though no paperwork was filed at the time, and she and Hirsi had another child in 2012. Omar and Elmi did not officially divorce until 2017, and she civilly married Hirsi in 2018. But while Omar was still married to Elmi, she filed tax returns with Hirsi and featured him as her husband in her 2016 campaign materials, when she ran for the U.S. House of Representatives.
Naturally, Omar has denied that Elmi is her brother, accusing questioners of Islamophobia. There is copious evidence that he is, but even if he weren’t, she still committed immigration fraud with him, because the marriage was demonstrably a sham.
“People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy [in the late 2000s],” a member of the Minneapolis Somali community told the UK Daily Mail. “He was very feminine in the way he dressed — he would wear light lipstick and pink clothes and very, very, short shorts in the summer. People started whispering about him.”
The Mail accessed Elmi’s social media accounts and reproduced some of the selfies he posted. Judge for yourself — does this look like a man who would legitimately marry a woman?
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Maybe George Santos lied about where he worked or went to college, but at least he didn’t commit bigamy and fraud and lie about that.
Related: Promise Kept: Schiff, Swalwell, and Omar Lose Powerful Committee Assignments
With recent increased focus on the politicized, two-tiered American justice system, and with the new wave of Republicans willing to play by rules set by Democrats, keeping out of sight may be a wise move for Omar. The Biden family’s corruption and self-enrichment may have strained the infamous Democrat double standard to the breaking point. And with such a precarious majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans may finally be in the mood to demand the new zero-tolerance rule for liars be enforced evenly across the aisle.
We’ll worry about Santos embellishing his resume as soon as Ilhan Omar comes clean about marrying her brother as part of a scheme to defraud the United States and skirt our immigration laws.
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) December 27, 2022
