For years, Ilhan Omar’s defense against the allegation that she married her own brother has been simple: call it a racist, right-wing smear and wait for it to go away. Now one of Minnesota’s best-connected Democrats is saying out loud what the party has refused to, the New York Post reports.
Joe Radinovich, a former Minnesota state representative who ran Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s 2017 campaign and later served as Frey’s chief of staff, took to X on Thursday with a blunt warning to his own side. “Democrats should understand that the allegation is almost certainly true — whatever conclusions they draw from that point could vary — and her denials calling it a right-wing, Islamophobic or racist conspiracy are almost certainly not,” he wrote.
He didn’t stop at the marriage. Radinovich said he would be “very, very careful” with the allegations around her finances, “where no meaningful questions have been answered publicly, and where any objective look at the evidence doesn’t look…great.” In a follow-up post, he put it even more plainly: “Vibes is what it would take to believe her at this point. There’s plenty of evidence and sourcing available if you don’t dismiss it out of hand.”
Let that sink in. This isn’t a Republican talking point. It’s a man who managed Democrat Rick Nolan’s 2016 congressional campaign and spent years inside the Minneapolis Democratic machine.
The blowback from the left came fast. Briana Rose Lee, a Minneapolis Democratic activist who previously worked in Omar’s campaign operation, fired back: “Joe. You aren’t stupid. You know this is a baseless and manufactured witch hunt.” Radinovich didn’t back down. “You’re right. I’m not stupid,” he replied. He made clear he has little confidence in President Trump’s Justice Department and questioned the timing of the federal raid on Omar’s home, but added that it’s “pretty notable that a DC judge signed off on it” and that he is “pretty confident this specific allegation is true.”
That raid is why the story is back. Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar’s Washington, D.C., home on Oct. 12, seizing her passport, phone and computer. Federal investigators are examining whether Omar or her late father provided false information on citizenship paperwork decades ago, a probe that could affect her citizenship status. Feds first opened an investigation into the alleged marriage scheme in 2016, under the Obama administration; it stayed open until the Biden administration closed it in 2021.
Omar has repeatedly denied marrying her brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, in 2009, and she has not been charged with any crime. Her office calls the claims “politically motivated smears.” Her campaign went after Radinovich personally, telling Fox News Digital that he is “a deeply troubled individual” with “an irrational obsession” with Omar after managing two losing primary challenges against her, and calling him “a shill for Republican and Corporate money.”
Notice what the campaign didn’t do: answer a single question about the marriage or the money. That’s a window into what happens when a party spends years shouting “racism” instead of demanding answers. The shield holds right up until one of your own decides he won’t carry it anymore.
Source: nypost.com