Obama Calls the Omar Probe ‘Appalling’ but Skips the Questions at Its Center

Written By TNT Staff, Posted on October 19, 2026

Featured photo: Official portrait of Barack Obama, January 2009. Photo: Pete Souza (CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons).

Barack Obama has weighed in on the federal investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar’s citizenship, and he didn’t hold back. In a long post on X Sunday morning, the former president called the probe “appalling” and cast it as payback against one of President Trump’s “fiercest critics.” What he didn’t do is deal with the questions investigators are actually asking.

“It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say,” Obama wrote. “But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.”

He’s right about the principle. No one should be prosecuted for criticizing a president. But the same principle runs the other way: no one gets a pass on immigration law because she criticizes a president, either. A member of Congress is held to the same standard as anyone else who took the oath of citizenship.

To be clear, Omar has not been charged with any crime, and she is presumed innocent. She has denied committing immigration fraud. Everything below about her paperwork is an allegation or an open question, not a finding.

What Obama said

Obama laid out Omar’s side of the story. “Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen,” he wrote. “If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically.”

He called the government’s case “the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized,” and wrote that agents “have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago.”

“The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president,” he wrote, warning that “if this becomes the new normal, there’s no reason to believe it will stop with her.”

What he left out

Obama’s post leans on one claim, that Omar was 17. That’s exactly what’s in dispute, and he didn’t mention any of the reasons people doubt it.

As TNT reported Oct. 15, Omar’s official birth year used to be 1981. Emails reported by the New York Post and Alpha News show that on May 17, 2019, the director of the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library wrote that “Library staff were informed by Rep. Omar’s congressional staff that her birth year was incorrect and requested that we change it to 1982.” Under the law in force in 2000, a child generally had to be under 18 to get citizenship through a naturalizing parent. Born in 1982, she would have been 17 for most of 2000. Born in 1981, she would have been too old. A corrected library entry doesn’t prove which year is right. But it’s the heart of the question, and Obama skipped it.

He also skipped the marriage records. The Minnesota Star Tribune notes that documents released in 2019 showed discrepancies in her marriage history, long the basis of Republican accusations, though the paper found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing.

And he skipped the evidence that apparently got a judge to sign off on the search. Family text messages from a phone belonging to one of Omar’s sisters, seized earlier, were among the material used to persuade a federal judge to approve the Oct. 12 search, the Star Tribune reported, citing the New York Times and its anonymous sources. The Justice Department hasn’t confirmed that.

Obama’s “nonexistent smoking gun” is a guess. A federal judge found enough to authorize a search of a sitting member of Congress’s home. That’s not proof of guilt, but it isn’t nothing.

“Charges” that don’t exist, and cases that weren’t won on the merits

Obama wrote that Omar has been “forced to spend time fighting unsubstantiated charges.” There are no charges. She hasn’t been indicted. That should count in her favor. But a former president shouldn’t describe an investigation as a case that’s already been charged and already failed.

He also pointed to the Justice Department’s cases against “the Attorney General of New York” and “the former head of the FBI,” writing that those prosecutions “either stalled or were dismissed for having no basis in law.” That’s misleading. On Nov. 24, 2025, a federal judge dismissed the indictments of Letitia James and James Comey because the prosecutor who brought them, Lindsey Halligan, had been unlawfully appointed, the AP reported. The dismissals were without prejudice, which means the cases could be brought again, and the Justice Department appealed. That’s a ruling about who signed the indictments, not about whether the charges had a basis in law.

What the administration says

White House border czar Tom Homan told Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show” on Saturday that investigators have a “strong case,” though he said he didn’t have the specifics. Asked by co-host Tomi Lahren whether the case could lead to denaturalization and deportation if there was immigration fraud, he said: “Of course. If you lie during the naturalization process, there is a process to denaturalize somebody. We’ve done it before, it’s a long, tedious process, but it’s been done before.”

“She’ll be held to the same standards you and I are held,” Homan said, according to the Star Tribune. “If she violated law, then she’ll be held accountable.”

That’s the right standard, and it cuts both ways: if the evidence doesn’t hold up, the government should say so quickly.

White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis answered Obama directly. “Unlike Joe Biden, President Trump has not weaponized the Department of Justice against his political foes,” she told Fox News Digital. Trump has said the investigation is up to the Justice Department. “I’ve always found her to be totally crooked, personally, but that has nothing to do with me,” he said, as Fox reported.

Comments like that don’t help the government’s case. If DOJ wants the public to believe this is about the law and not politics, the President should let prosecutors do the talking.

Omar’s response

Omar’s lawyers sent federal prosecutors a letter Friday demanding the return of seized items and calling the search “neither justified nor lawful,” the Star Tribune reported. “This vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated criminal investigation into one of the President’s chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar’s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers,” they wrote. Officials have seized her phone, laptop, notebooks and passport, according to a source cited by the paper.

Omar’s timing complaint has some force. The search came weeks before Election Day, while she’s on the ballot, and some former federal prosecutors told the Star Tribune it appears to break a longstanding DOJ norm of not targeting candidates for roughly 60 days before an election.

The law applies to everyone

Obama asked Americans to be outraged “regardless of how they feel about Congresswoman Omar’s political views.” Fair enough. Here’s the version conservatives can sign on to, regardless of how anyone feels about her views: citizenship obtained honestly can’t be taken away, and citizenship obtained by fraud isn’t protected by a seat in Congress.

If Omar was 17, the records will show it and the investigation should end. If the paperwork was false, being a critic of the President doesn’t make that go away. Obama’s post argues only one side of that question. The courts should settle it on the evidence.