President Donald Trump suggested Rep. Ilhan Omar was 'married to her brother' on Wednesday, ratcheting up his attacks on one of his Democrat tormentors.
He made the claim on the White House lawn shortly before departing for a rally, reigniting a rumor that first surfaced during Omar's victorious 2016 campaign.
'Well there's a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother,' Trump said. 'I know nothing about it, I hear that she was married to her brother ... I don't know but I'm sure that somebody would be looking at that.'
Omar's marital status was first scrutinized three years ago when a Somali website alleged that her second husband was her brother and that she was a bigamist.
When she married her second husband legal documents appear to show she was still living with her first husband.
And the trio all reportedly went off to live together in Fargo while Omar and her second husband were studying at the University of North Dakota.
It also appears that Omar’s father Nur Said Elmi Mohamed has the same name as her second husband’s father. He attended Arlington Senior High School in Minnesota and multiple former classmates say that is also the name of his father.
She has furiously dismissed claims she married her brother as 'baseless, absurd rumors' and accused journalists of Islamophobia.
However, she has remained evasive on the details surrounding her marriages and a campaign email obtained by the Spectator from her spokesman Ben Goldfarb shows his frustration in trying to get her out of a hole.
'Having no [sic] tried to write a statement multiple times that says, "I’m not legally married to two people but I am legally married to one and culturally married to another", I think it’s impossible.' Goldfarb writes.
She says she married Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in 2002 in a Muslim ceremony. No marriage certificate was signed and after having two children they divorced in 2008.
Within a year she had married a Somalian migrant to Britain, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in a suburban Minnesota registry.
The clinical ceremony - in contrast to her previous shariah wedding - was conducted by a Christian minister Wilecia Harris.
This would seem at odds with Omar's proud faith tradition.
According to Omar, her second husband went back to the UK in 2011 after another Islamic divorce and the following year she had a third child with her first husband.
Omar has refused to comment on when and how she met the British citizen or how they became married so soon after her separation from Hirsi.
The Congresswoman has claimed that she married Elmi after she and Hirsi reached 'an impasse in our life together.'
However, this appears to be rubbished by legal documents uncovered by the Washington Examiner which show she was still living with her first husband.
Public records show that Omar was living with Hirsi at a home in the Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis in 2009 - the year she wed her second husband and two years before she says she re-united with Hirsi.
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Furthermore, the Spectator report Omar's first husband went to live with the pair in Fargo where she and her new husband were studying at North Dakota State University.
Her second husband moved back to London after they had a shariah divorce in 2011, according to Omar.
However, social media posts circulating on Alpha News appear to show that he had remained in Minnesota into late 2012.
That year she had her third child with her first husband and they were re-united in another Islamic wedding.
The explosive claims were blown wide open during a Minnesota Campaign and Public Disclosure Board investigation into her campaign finances which revealed in 2014 and 2015 she filed tax returns with her husband as Hirsi, while she was legally married to Elmi.
She did not legally divorce Elmi until 2017. She legally married Hirsi early in 2018, one year after divorcing her second husband.
She claims the reason for her belated divorce was because she was unable to get in contact with him after he returned to the UK.
However, social media postings uncovered by the Spectator appear to show she was in contact with her second husband and she had visited London in 2014.
Omar says she believes the rumor was first circulated by people who wanted to stop a black, female Muslim from sitting in Congress.
Omar is one of the four congresswomen Trump tweeted should 'go back' to their countries of origin on Sunday, prompting the House of Representatives to condemn his 'racist' tweets.
The House voted 240-187 to condemn his words. Just four Republicans voted backed the Democrat led resolution.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
