Obama calls the Ilhan Omar investigation appalling as Homan says investigators have a strong case

Barack Obama broke his silence on the federal case against Rep. Ilhan Omar on Sunday, calling the investigation appalling and warning that it marks a dangerous turn for the country. The former president said the government is trying to frighten a sitting member of Congress because she speaks out against the White House.

His long statement, posted on social media, landed one day after the administration's top border official said investigators believe they have a strong case against the Minnesota Democrat. No charges have been filed against Omar and she denies doing anything wrong.

What Obama said

Obama wrote that in a democracy the government is not supposed to single out people for their beliefs or their words. Yet he said the full weight of Washington is now bearing down on a lawmaker who follows the law, only because she has criticized the president.

He then walked through the citizenship question at the heart of the probe. Omar came to America at age 12 alongside her father. Five years later her father was naturalized. Because she was 17 at that moment, Obama said, she became a citizen automatically. Investigators are chasing what he called an unsubstantiated theory that she was really 18, which would have meant she needed to apply on her own.

Obama said last week's search of her Washington home was a hunt for a smoking gun from two decades ago that does not exist. He tied it to other federal moves against people seen as foes of the administration, among them the New York attorney general, an ex-FBI director and Federal Reserve officials. Several of those efforts, he noted, stalled in court or were thrown out.

Such an open effort to intimidate a lawmaker "should outrage all Americans," he wrote, no matter what they think of Omar's politics. If it becomes routine, he warned, nothing suggests it would stop with her. Presidents of both parties could then feel free to do the same.

The administration pushes back

A White House spokeswoman rejected the charge. She said the president has not used the Justice Department against his political opponents and that the department is focused on law and order and public safety. The president has said the case is up to prosecutors and has nothing to do with him.

Border czar Tom Homan went further in a television interview Saturday. He said he had been told investigators have a strong case and that Omar will be held to the same standard as anyone else. Asked whether she could lose her citizenship, he said a person who lies during naturalization can be denaturalized, calling it a long and tedious process that has been carried out before.

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has said agents served several other warrants on the same day as the Omar search and that he expects the case to go before a grand jury.

Where the case stands

Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar's home on Oct. 12 and took her personal phone. Several of her relatives received grand jury subpoenas days earlier. Her lawyers say agents ignored conditions set by the judge who approved the warrant, such as alerting the House's legal office and promptly showing her the warrant. They also say agents kept her from reaching her attorney for more than an hour. The Justice Department says it followed every court order.

Omar, 44, was born in Somalia, came to the United States as a refugee in 1995 and became a citizen in 2000. She is running for a fifth term in a race that ends in a few weeks. Prosecutors usually avoid public investigative steps close to an election, which is part of why the timing has drawn so much criticism. Omar has called the probe political intimidation and says she will not be silenced.