President Donald Trump on Thursday (Oct 22) called on Speaker Mike Johnson to remove Ilhan Omar from Congress, claiming the Minnesota representative was sworn in under a false identity. "She used a fake name to be sworn in, I assume she must automatically resign from Congress," Trump said at a rally in Iowa.
"The Democrat party has just conceded her seat. Ilhan Nur Said Elmi will no longer hold that seat," he claimed.
Omar's office has meanwhile rejected the claim outright. "This is completely false. Ilhan Omar is her real name," a spokesperson told Fox News, before accusing the outlet that published the report of giving oxygen to a lie.
Also read | Trump says Ilhan Omar 'could go to jail' amid federal probe, calls Somalia a ‘s***house’
So, what is Ilhan Omar's real name?
According to a Fox News Digital report, citing unidentified sources familiar with an ongoing investigation into Congresswoman Omar's name at birth is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. The report claims that "Ilhan Omar" is not her real name.
The reporting also leans on a court filing. On Wednesday, US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro moved to keep the federal search warrant for Omar's home sealed, arguing the government has not finished executing it. The motion refers to "Congresswoman Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar." One source told the outlet, "That's not her real name."
A former Minnesota federal immigration judge, Nathan Hansen, said that if it were proven in court that she had lived her entire life under an alias, every form she has ever filled out could be called into question, from student aid and housing applications to passport and voter records, many of them sworn under penalty of perjury.
Why is Trump after Omar? The raid and more
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Federal investigators are probing whether Omar or her father committed fraud on her immigration paperwork. During an October 12 pre-dawn raid, they obtained her DNA and seized her phone and passport. Her sister, Sahra Noor, was questioned last week. Omar has confirmed publicly that she does not have a birth certificate, and her House biography lists her as born in Mogadishu on October 14, 1982, arriving in the US as a refugee in 1995.
She has not been charged with any crime, and the material presented by prosecutors remains allegations.
Omar has long faced allegations that she married her brother for immigration purposes. In a 2009 marriage she wed a man named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, and the pair split in 2017. In her first interview since the raid, she told MS NOW's Chris Hayes that the allegation was "insane." Asked whether there was "some weird kernel of truth," she replied, "Not to my knowledge."
She has accused Trump of weaponising federal law enforcement against a political rival, calling the raid "an outrageous abuse of power."

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