Bombshell: Ilhan Omar Did Marry Her Brother, Says Personal Friend Who Has Finally Gone on Record

We should have seen this coming. Not because of any concrete evidence, of course, but simply because it feels like forever—years, in fact—since there has been a fresh controversy surrounding Rep. Ilhan Omar.

The last significant scandal involving the Minnesota Democrat that didn’t center on her making anti-Semitic remarks (which seems to happen nearly every time she discusses foreign affairs) was the revelation of how much money her campaign funneled to the man who later became her husband. And even that feels like ancient history—at least 40 Scaramuccis ago. It was time for something new.

And now, here it is—though it’s about an old controversy that Democrats once dismissed as falsehoods and “disinformation.”

According to the U.K. Daily Mail, sources have confirmed that Omar admitted to friends that her “second husband” was, in reality, her brother, and that their marriage was a sham designed to secure immigration papers for him.

Additionally, one source informed the publication that this arrangement was a widely discussed scandal within Minneapolis’ Somali community when it occurred—well before Omar became a high-profile political figure.

Omar has consistently denied that her marriage was fraudulent or that the two were related, and the political media have frequently labeled conservatives who raise the issue as conspiracy theorists or bigots—or both.

However, Abdihakim Osman, a friend of Omar’s first/third husband (yes, it’s complicated), asserts that the fraudulent nature of the marriage was common knowledge.

Moreover, he claims that the ceremony was conducted by a Christian minister instead of an imam. His reasoning? He suspects that religious leaders in Minneapolis’ Somali community would have refused to officiate had they known the couple was related.

Here’s what is known: Omar first married Ahmed Hirsi in a 2002 Muslim ceremony. However, as the Daily Mail notes, “like many in the immigrant community, [it] was not registered with the state.”

Osman first met Hirsi while he was working at a barbershop, and later worked for him when he started a hookah business.

The couple had two children together before Ahmed Elmi arrived in the Minneapolis Somali community. Osman claims that Elmi, who presented himself as effeminate, was sent from the U.K. to Minneapolis for “rehab,” though it didn’t appear to be drug-related.

“People began noticing that Ilhan and [Hirsi] were often with a very effeminate young guy,” Osman recalled. “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.”

“[Hirsi] and Ilhan both told me it was Ilhan’s brother and he had been living in London but he was mixing with what were seen as bad influences that the family did not like,” he continued. “So they sent him to Minneapolis as ‘rehab.’”

Osman also compared the two wedding ceremonies: “When [Hirsi] and Ilhan got married, a lot of people were invited. It was a big Islamic wedding uniting two large clans in the Minneapolis community,” he said. “I would say there were 100-150 people there.”

But when she married Elmi? “No one even knew about it.”

“No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,” he explained.

Initially, the scandal revolved more around Hirsi, who was well known in the Somali community of Minneapolis.

“He was a footballer, he promoted a lot of Somali shows, he was very popular,” Osman said. “So the scandal was about [Hirsi’s] brother-in-law more than Ilhan’s brother.”

Despite persistent rumors that Omar and Elmi were siblings, the lack of documentation from war-torn Somalia made it impossible to prove.

At the time of their 2009 marriage, Omar stated that she had separated from Hirsi in 2008—though since their initial marriage wasn’t legally recognized, it was not an obstacle anyway.

A Somali diaspora website, Somalispot, first reported these allegations in 2016 as Omar’s political career was taking off: “As soon as Ilhan Omar married him he started university at her alma mater North Dakota State University where he graduated in 2012,” the site reported.

“Shortly thereafter, he moved to Minneapolis where he was living in a public housing complex and was later evicted. He then returned to the United Kingdom.”

Omar dismissed these as “baseless, absurd rumors.” But Osman insists that claim is itself baseless and absurd, given what she allegedly told him.

“She said she needed to get papers for her brother to go to school. We all thought she was just getting papers together to allow him to stay in this country,” he said. “Once she had the papers, they could apply for student loans. They both moved to North Dakota to go to school, but she was still married to [Hirsi]. In the Somali way, the only marriage that mattered was the one in the mosque.”

“Ilhan came back to Minneapolis all the time to see her family, but her brother didn’t come with her,” he added.

Omar divorced Elmi in 2017 and “remarried” Hirsi in 2018. This time, it was a legal civil ceremony—but the reason “remarried” is in quotation marks is that the couple had a child while she was still legally married to Elmi.

“They never parted,” Osman asserted.

Hirsi and Omar eventually divorced after her affair with her chief fundraiser, Tim Mynett, became public. Omar and Mynett are now married, and Hirsi has also remarried.

Though the controversy over her marriage had mostly faded from the spotlight, last month reports surfaced that the FBI had met with a source possessing a “trove of documents” regarding Omar and Elmi’s union. Whether this source is Osman or someone connected to him remains unclear, but marriage fraud carries a potential sentence of up to five years in prison and fines of $250,000.

This time, Omar may not be able to deflect criticism with accusations of conspiracy theories or Islamophobia—not with members of her own Somali community stepping forward. It’s just one voice for now, but a well-connected one. And perhaps the first of many willing to shed light on this peculiar (and potentially unlawful) arrangement.

It’s remarkable: a congresswoman who frequently criticizes Israel and denounces America’s shortcomings now finds herself credibly accused of marrying her own brother to facilitate his entry into the very country she claims to disdain—and has never been able to provide concrete proof that these allegations are false.

There’s an undeniable irony in allegedly committing a crime to bring a family member to a country one supposedly detests. And, just for perspective—how often do you hear of Israelis doing something like this? Just a little food for thought.