Ilhan Omar has spent years counting on her party to close ranks every time she lands in trouble. This time, dozens of her own colleagues stayed away. Around 40 House Democrats declined to sign a letter defending the Minnesota “Squad” member from a federal immigration probe, the New York Post reports, even as party leaders demanded the Trump administration back off.
The letter, led by Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington and signed by 175 members of the 214-member caucus, accuses the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security of weaponizing law enforcement against Omar. Federal agents searched her Washington home earlier this month. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries signed it. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not.
She was not alone. Reps. Tom Suozzi, Laura Gillen and Josh Gottheimer, who represent districts in New York and New Jersey, kept their names off it. So did Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, who holds a competitive seat in Washington state. The Post notes that not signing does not necessarily mean those lawmakers support the investigation. But most of the holdouts the Post named are Democrats in tough races, one week before Election Day.
The probe centers on allegations that Omar or her late father misrepresented her birth year on immigration paperwork. Agents executed a judicially authorized search warrant at her DC home on Oct. 12, seizing multiple phones and notebooks. Omar has not been charged, and she has dismissed the investigation as a political attack by President Trump.
The letter’s signers made the case that the timing is the scandal. “This weaponization of law enforcement to harass a sitting Member of Congress 22 days before an election is unprecedented and unacceptable,” they wrote. They also complained that news of the warrant, “whether properly predicated or not, could affect voters’ decisions.”
Notice the words “whether properly predicated or not.” The 175 Democrats are not arguing the search was baseless. They are arguing that voters should not hear about it before they vote. That is a remarkable thing to put in writing.
Omar is used to this kind of protection. Just last year, the House narrowly rejected a Republican effort to censure her over remarks she made after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. That resolution failed 214-213, with Democrats holding the line. The holdouts on this letter show that line is getting thinner.
This is a window into what happens when a party treats one member’s legal trouble as an attack on all of them. The leadership signs on, the safe-seat progressives sign on, and many of the members who actually have to win swing voters quietly walk away. Americans deserve to know whether the immigration paperwork was honest. The Democrats who stayed off this letter seem to understand that.
Source: nypost.com