For years, Ilhan Omar has told America the same story about her father. Nur Omar Mohamed was an educator who fled Somalia's civil war and brought his family to the United States as refugees in 1995.
An Oxford historian who studies Somalia's military regime tells it differently. "He was a full colonel in Siad Barre's military regime," Mohamed Haji Ingiriis said. "Ilhan's father was never an educator."
Now a federal grand jury wants to hear from the rest of the family.
On October 13, the day after Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar's Washington home, word broke that the grand jury had subpoenaed her sister, Sahra Noor, and at least one other relative. Investigators are reportedly examining whether Nur Omar Mohamed lied or left information off his immigration forms before he became a citizen. Ilhan Omar's own citizenship depends on those forms.
Siad Barre seized power in a 1969 coup and ruled Somalia as a military dictator until 1991. His regime's campaign against the Isaaq clan killed an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 people, most of them civilians.
According to Ingiriis, Omar's father served that regime to the end. "Nur Said was a military officer who was loyal to the regime until the end," he said. "He only fled when the dictatorship fell in 1991." Ingiriis added: "He was the beneficiary of the military regime and should not have been given asylum whatsoever."
He didn't stop there. "I think it is very wrong for the United States to host war criminals."
Reports say Nur joined Somalia's military in the late 1960s and trained in either the Soviet Union or Egypt. A former fellow officer, Yusuf Ismail Faraton, who also settled in Minneapolis, said in 2020 that Nur played a "significant role" in Somalia's 1977–78 war with Ethiopia.
Refugee status exists for people fleeing persecution. U.S. law bars it for anyone who "ordered, incited, assisted or otherwise participated in the persecution" of others. If a colonel in Barre's army told American officials he was a persecuted educator, everything his family received through him is open to question, including his daughter's citizenship.
The name Ingiriis uses is worth a second look. He calls Omar's father "Nur Said." Under Somali naming custom, a person's second name is the father's first name.
The man Omar married in 2009 is named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says Elmi is her brother. Omar has denied it for years.
The paper trail was already thin. In 2023, AJ Kern, a former opponent of Omar's, obtained documents from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services about Nur Omar Mohamed's naturalization. They said "no record is found to exist."
The immigration probe is only half of Omar's problem. The same day the subpoenas came to light, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News that her office is investigating Omar's financial disclosures.
Those disclosures have a strange history. In 2023, Omar reported household assets of between $15,000 and $51,000. The next year, her filing valued two businesses owned by her husband, political consultant Tim Mynett, at up to $30 million. His firm Rose Lake Capital was listed at $5 million to $25 million. His winery, eStCru, jumped from $15,000–$50,000 to $1 million–$5 million.
In February, House Oversight Chairman James Comer wrote to Mynett about "concerns that unknown individuals may be investing to gain influence with your wife." Comer asked for financial records and documents about travel to the United Arab Emirates, Somalia, and Kenya.
On March 26, Omar amended her disclosure to show both businesses with no net value after liabilities. Her office called the original an "error."
Nine days later, the winery filed for termination.
Then there's the sister. Sahra Noor is a health care professional who recently published a memoir about immigrating from Somalia. She runs a Minneapolis consulting firm that says it has secured "more than $20 million in funding for health initiatives" and has worked on projects backed by the CDC and USAID. She didn't respond to requests for comment.
A grand jury subpoena doesn't make Noor a target. It means prosecutors believe she knows something worth putting under oath, and she's legally required to answer.
The timing tells you how seriously prosecutors take this. With the midterms 22 days away, the Justice Department normally avoids visible investigative steps involving a candidate. Prosecutors sometimes act anyway when they believe evidence could be destroyed. In the span of two days, they searched a sitting congresswoman's home and subpoenaed her family.
Omar responded on X: "I'm ok. Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement." She added, "For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. I will not be silenced."
None of the evidence in this story came from Trump. An Oxford historian said her father was a colonel. Immigration officials said they had no record of his naturalization. And Omar's office filled out her financial disclosure form, then amended it.
Mullin has already said where this ends if the government proves fraud. Lying on an immigration application has "no expiration," he said, and anyone who "shouldn't have been here in the first place" faces deportation.
Ilhan Omar built her political career on the story of a refugee family that escaped a dictatorship. A historian says her father served that dictatorship until it fell. A federal grand jury now has subpoenas out to the people who would know which story is true.
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