DHS Secretary Mullin calls Ilhan Omar probe a "strong case"

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said national agents executed aggregate hunt warrants connected the aforesaid time they searched Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar's Washington home. While appearing connected a podcast Friday, Mullin described the ongoing probe arsenic a "strong case" portion suggesting cases of coordinated migration fraud could beryllium prosecuted nether national racketeering laws.

In an interrogation with Andrew Kolvet, who hosts the "Charlie Kirk Show," Mullin volunteered that aggregate warrants had been served connected Monday, adding that a justice had authorized the enforcement enactment and that investigators expected to contiguous their lawsuit to a expansive jury.

Omar has not been charged with a crime. She has called the probe politically motivated.

"She wasn't – oregon it wasn't the lone spot we served the warrant," Mullin said, referencing the D.C. residence of the Minnesota congresswoman. "There was aggregate different warrants served connected that aforesaid day." 

"We had a justice motion it, and we expect to beryllium capable to instrumentality the lawsuit to a expansive jury," Mullin said, revealing caller details astir the scope of the operation. "But I volition archer you, we wouldn't determination forward, and President Trump didn't privation to determination guardant either, unless we knew that it couldn't beryllium politically driven. Now they privation to effort making it governmental driven. This idiosyncratic wants to effort making it astir themselves. This was astir enforcing erstwhile again our nation's laws, and it's a beardown case." 

President Trump antecedently stated helium didn't cognize thing astir the investigation, which is being handled by DHS' Homeland Security Investigations part and the Justice Department. Asked astir the Omar probe connected Monday, Mr. Trump told reporters: "I deliberation she's a unspeakable person, but that's truly up to the DOJ." 

Mullin's remarks came amid a national probe into imaginable fraud involving migration documents submitted by Omar's household decades ago. The documents successful question day backmost to Omar's childhood, involving paperwork completed by her precocious begetter erstwhile she was a child, CBS News reported earlier this week. Multiple relatives of Omar received expansive assemblage subpoenas arsenic portion of the investigation, and the lawmaker's idiosyncratic cellphone was taken by DHS, sources told CBS News.

During the interview, Kolvet besides asked Mullin astir a hypothetical script involving a erstwhile overseas warlord who entered the United States arsenic a exile with his daughter. Mullin did not found that the circumstances applied to Omar's family. But the DHS caput did usage the hypothetical to suggest that those who taxable fraudulent migration documents and alteration others to participate the state nether the aforesaid purported strategy could precise good beryllium prosecuted nether U.S. law.

Such conduct, helium said, could perchance represent a usurpation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, oregon RICO, a national instrumentality utilized to prosecute organized transgression enterprises.

"If idiosyncratic … fills retired their paperwork illegally, and they assertion that they are this idiosyncratic and this is their background, and past underneath that individual, a batch of different radical travel in. And I'm conscionable saying hypothetically crossed a full clump of cases that's retired there, past that tin beryllium considered a RICO case, right?" the DHS caput offered. "Because determination was conspiracy to deceive the American government, and truthful everything other that came successful with it could past beryllium looked astatine [part of] the aforesaid case."

Mullin suggested that a racketeering prosecution could let investigators to analyse behaviour extending backmost decades, arguing that statutes of limitations mostly would not use to specified cases.

Under national law, transgression RICO prosecutions are mostly taxable to a five-year statute of limitations, though successful definite cases prosecutors tin incorporated older acts into a timely prosecution involving an ongoing transgression endeavor oregon conspiracy.

In Grunewald v. United States, the Supreme Court held successful 1957 that prosecutors cannot indefinitely widen a conspiracy simply due to the fact that perpetrators covered it up aft it ended. 

Mullin did not explicitly bespeak that prosecutors were pursuing RICO charges against Omar. But his remarks did suggest investigators are considering whether alleged migration violations could beryllium examined arsenic portion of a broader conspiracy alternatively than simply arsenic isolated offenses. He said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents had worked intimately with the Justice Department to physique retired the case.

It is antithetic for national officials to talk openly astir ongoing transgression investigations beyond confirming that a court-authorized hunt was conducted, successful portion owed to owed process protections and expansive assemblage secrecy rules. 

CBS News has reached retired to Omar's lawyer for comment.

Earlier this week, Omar — a staunch Trump professional who has drawn the president's ire for years — denied each wrongdoing and said she "will not beryllium silenced."

"Make nary mistake: this is an effort to people governmental enemies and weaponize national instrumentality enforcement," she wrote connected X. "For 10 years, Trump has targeted maine with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is conscionable the latest escalation successful his run of governmental intimidation."

Sarah N. Lynch contributed to this report.