US Attorney Jeanine Pirro went on Fox News with Jesse Watters and dropped a name most Americans haven’t heard before, saying that Congresswoman Ilhan Omar’s real name is Ilhan Nur Sayed Elmi. When Watters asked Pirro directly whether Omar’s real name was Ilhan Omar, Pirro didn’t blink. “Her real name is Ilhan Nur Sayed Elmi. You had it absolutely right,” she said.
Then things got interesting. When Watters followed up and asked whether Omar was living and working in Congress under an alias, Pirro pulled back just enough to leave the question hanging. “You’ll have to ask her what she considers her name,” Pirro replied. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the congresswoman’s story, but also not an accusation of fraud, and Pirro did not present evidence during the interview to substantiate the claim.
Pirro did say that investigators had questions about Omar’s compliance with US immigration and naturalization laws, including how names had been used in official paperwork. She also confirmed a separate investigation into Omar’s financial disclosures, though that inquiry is a different matter entirely. A federal court filing connected to a search warrant for Omar’s Washington residence lists her as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar,” meaning “also known as.” That filing does not establish that she used a fraudulent identity, and Omar has not been charged with a crime in connection with any of these allegations. You can read more about Pirro’s remarks on Omar’s name to see the full context of what was and wasn’t said.
The surname Elmi isn’t random. It matches the last name of Omar’s former husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, whom she married in 2009. Omar has firmly denied long-standing allegations that her former husband was actually her brother and that the marriage was intended to help with immigration benefits. On October 21, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes asked Omar directly whether there was a “weird kernel of truth” to those allegations. Her answer: “Not to my knowledge.”
Omar’s spokesperson fired back at Pirro, telling Fox News Digital, “This is completely false. Ilhan Omar is her real name.” The investigation itself, according to people familiar with the inquiry cited by The Washington Post, concerns allegations involving Omar’s immigration and citizenship paperwork, including questions about her birth date and naturalization records. Federal agents searched Omar’s Washington, DC, residence on October 12 as part of the inquiry. A search does not establish that any law was broken, and none of these allegations have been proven in court.
So here’s where things stand. There’s an open federal immigration investigation, a court filing with a different name attached to the congresswoman, and a US Attorney saying investigators have serious questions about whether the law was followed. Pirro didn’t go so far as to call it fraud, and the law hasn’t either, at least not yet. Minnesota voters will be watching, and so will pretty much everyone else who’s ever wondered how Ilhan Omar ended up in Congress in the first place.
