A message to the Star Tribune

A reader has copied us on his message to reporter Maya Rao et al. at the Star Tribune regarding Ilhan Omar, the winner of the DFL nomination to represent District 60B in the state legislature. My inquiries to the Omar campaign last week may be mistaken; that was the point of my inquiries. They deserve a more substantive response than the one I received from Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl, which should be a story in itself. I have lightly edited our reader’s message to Ms. Rao:

Ms Rao … I emailed you several days ago regarding the controversy now surrounding Ms. Omar.

Scott Johnson at Power Line has written about what appear to be serious violations of the law committed by Ms. Omar. Mr. Johnson has verified through the state marriage database Ms. Omar’s two marriage licenses. This would seemingly show she violated at minimum Minn. Stat. § 609.355 and Minn. Stat. § 517.03, through her multiple marriages, including one apparently to her own brother. It seems certain the marriage to her brother was for the purpose of committing immigration fraud.

I have attached a copy of the search results from www.moms.mn.gov … you can verify for yourselves by typing Ms. Omar’s name in the search.

I also attached cached copies of a thread from Somalispot … which they have now deleted and had Google scrub from their web cache.

Ms. Omar has also seemingly clearly committed perjury, making false representations under oath, in her marriage license application.

Mr. Johnson asked Ms. Omar’s campaign for comment on these serious charges. After being told he would receive a reply, he was contacted by Minneapolis criminal defense attorney Jean Brandl on behalf of Omar:

Dear Mr. Johnson:

I have been contacted by the Ilhan Omar campaign. Their response to your email from this morning is as follows:

“There are people who do not want an East African, Muslim woman elected to office and who will follow Donald Trump’s playbook to prevent it. Ilhan Omar’s campaign sees your superfluous contentions as one more in a series of attempts to discredit her candidacy.

Ilhan Omar’s campaign will not be distracted by negative forces and will continue to focus its energy on creating positive engagement with community members to make the district and state more prosperous and equitable for everyone.”

If you have any further questions regarding this matter, please direct them to me in writing so we have a record of any further communications.

Sincerely,

Jean Brandl

One might more properly characterize that response as an attack, not a legitimate response. And pretty much it would seem an admission of guilt as well – that Ms. Omar has no appropriate answer to these serious and legitimate questions.

I am absolutely no supporter of Ms. Kahn – I am the furthest thing from it. I strongly disagree with just about everything about her. That said – these are very serious charges. If, as it seems, they are true, then Ms. Omar has committed a list of legal violations, including violations of federal immigration law, and is unfit, and should be prevented from, holding office.

These are extremely serious charges – and should be headline news – regardless of of the individual committing them. Surely the Star Tribune is aware of these seemingly accurate allegations. As I noted, I personally emailed last week. And received no response. I know several others have as well.

I have documented and sourced most of the information necessary in this post:

Will the Star Tribune respond to these apparently accurate and documented violations of state and federal law? Is the Star Tribune still actually committed to journalistic ethics, honesty and integrity?

And to be very clear – my position and comments do not have anything to do with who the candidate is. It has to do with what the candidate has pretty clearly done.

I await your response …

Thanks.

Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.

Responses