Only hours after Minnesota GOP operative Anton Lazarro posted online DNA evidence that allegedly shows Rep. Ilhan Omar was once married to her brother, the FBI busted him.
The test results stated there is a 99.999998 percent chance that Omar and her second husband, Ahmed Elmi, now her ex-husband, are siblings, according to an analysis by British company Endeavor DNA Laboratories. But before Lazarro could share the results with the media, he was arrested Thursday on underage sex-trafficking charges and jailed pending a court hearing Monday.
His website, IlhanOmarDNA.com, containing the DNA test results, was online briefly before it was taken down Wednesday.
Lazarro and a group of conservative donors had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on three continents hiring private investigators to track down Elmi Omar’s ex-husband in the UK and procure his DNA from a drinking straw. Omar’s DNA, Lazarro’s website claimed, was extracted from saliva on a cigarette butt she was photographed smoking.
Omar previously has denied Elmi is her brother, calling the claim “absolutely false,” “absurd” and “offensive.”
Special Agent Joy Hess, from the FBI’s Twin Cities field office, which investigated allegations that Omar married her brother Elmi to get around US immigration laws, says the “statute of limitations” had run out on the case. In a recorded conversation with an associate of Lazarro, posted on his website Wednesday, Hess also said the FBI could not pursue the case because Omar’s ex-husband Elmi had moved overseas.
“The statute of limitations is over,” she said. “According to the US Attorney’s office The Statute of Limitations is not something we can overcome in that matter … The individual in question left the country so there’s nothing to [do].”
Asked if the new DNA evidence would be considered, she said: “All I can just say is that according to the United States Attorney’s Office the Statute of Limitations limits what we can do in this matter.”
There is no statute of limitations for immigration fraud, but there also appears to be no appetite in Democrat-run Minneapolis to investigate the claim that has dogged Democratic “Squad” member Omar for years.
It is shoddy that private citizens felt compelled to do the FBI’s job. Why didn’t the FBI do its own DNA tests and clear up the cloud hanging over Omar’s head?
The FBI did not respond to questions.