Markwayne Mullin uses DHS to target Ilhan Omar before election
By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso ·
DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin's search of Rep. Ilhan Omar's home over childhood paperwork is a political hit job that weaponizes federal law enforcement to intimidate a critic.
When federal agents kick in a door, they aren't just looking for evidence. They are sending a message. In this case, the message is that no one is safe from the whims of a president who views the law as a personal weapon. By raiding the home of Representative Ilhan Omar and seizing her personal cellphone, Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Donald Trump have turned the Department of Homeland Security into a private security firm for the executive branch. This is not a pursuit of justice. It is a campaign of descaro—a shameless attempt to break a political enemy using the very machinery meant to protect the country.
The fiction of a strong case
Markwayne Mullin calls this a "strong case" on the Charlie Kirk Show. He tells the audience that federal agents executed multiple search warrants on a Monday. One of those warrants landed at the Washington D.C. home of Rep. Omar. According to CBS News, the probe concerns immigration documents from decades ago. These were papers completed by Omar's late father when she was a child.
The absurdity is the point. Rep. Omar fled Somalia in 1995 and became a lawfully naturalized citizen in 2000. The Washington Post reports that Trump officials already scrubbed her records in 2019. They found no citizenship issues then. Yet, here we are again.
Mullin is now floating the idea of a RICO prosecution. He suggests that if someone fills out paperwork illegally, it could be a conspiracy to deceive the government. He wants to use racketeering laws to bypass the five-year statute of limitations. This is a desperate reach. He is trying to turn a child's immigration file into a mob trial.
A playbook for political ruin
The timing of this raid is not an accident. CNN reports the search occurred less than three weeks before Election Day. Historically, the Department of Justice avoids such moves so close to a vote. They do this to avoid the appearance of political interference. Trump and Mullin have no such reservations.
The execution of the search was a legal mess. No representative from the Justice Department was there to read Rep. Omar her privileges under the Speech or Debate Clause. Her attorneys, Amy Jeffress and Joshua Matz, say the search was "vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated." They note that Omar was repeatedly referred to by her first name in the paperwork. That is not the language of a professional investigation. It is the language of a bully.
This is the same mechanism used by COINTELPRO. From 1956 to 1971, the FBI used surveillance and disruption to discredit people they called "subversive." The goal was never a courtroom conviction. The goal was to destroy the person's standing in the community. By targeting a Muslim woman and a refugee, Mullin is using the state to signal who is "truly" American and who is a guest on sufferance.
The pattern of the fence
We have seen this movie before. It is the same spirit as Operation Fast and Furious, where federal law enforcement targeted individuals based on political narratives rather than actual crimes. When the state decides that a person's identity is a crime, the evidence becomes an afterthought.
Mullin's trajectory is telling. He went from a plumbing business to the Senate and then to the head of DHS. He is one of Trump's closest allies. Now, he is using his power to hunt a woman who has spent her career criticizing the very man who appointed him. Trump himself told reporters he thinks Omar is a "terrible person." That is the only evidence that actually matters in this case.
The government is not looking for fraud. They are looking for a way to strip a sitting congresswoman of her citizenship and deport her. They are treating the border not as a place where people live and work, but as a trapdoor they can open for anyone they dislike.
The Justice Department and DHS have committed a grave abuse of power. They ignored constitutional protections and bypassed the House Office of General Counsel to conduct a pre-election raid. This investigation is a fraud designed to facilitate a different kind of fraud: the theft of a citizen's rights for political gain. The courts must suppress every piece of evidence seized in this raid and dismiss the probe immediately. Anything less is an invitation for the government to treat every political opponent as a foreign agent.