Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) posted a video on Saturday that questions Rep. Ilhan Omar’s name, marriage history, and family ties, raising the long-held but unproven allegation that the Minnesota Democrat once married her brother.
Mace’s post questions Omar’s “real name,” why she used a surname with her husband before marriage, and Omar’s “baby daddy” and “actual daddy.” The video accompanying the post shows Mace addressing the camera about inconsistencies in Omar’s family.
The post comes days after federal prosecutors, in a court filing related to an immigration fraud investigation, referred to the congresswoman as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar.” The last name Elmi belongs to Omar’s ex-husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. Omar’s last name is Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, and she has denied multiple times that Elmi is her brother. The allegation remains unproven.
“Her name isn’t even Ilhan Omar,” Mace says in the video. “Her name is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, according to the feds.”
Then Mace addresses Omar’s 2009 marriage.
“Do you know what the name of her second husband was? Ahmed Nur Said Elmi,” she says. “They’re brother and sister because they share the same naming convention, Nur Said Elmi. Guess what their father’s name was? His name was Nur Said Elmi. He sometimes went by Nur Said Elmi Mohammed. Ahmed; they are definitely a brother and sister.”
Then she talks about a child Omar had in 2012.
“And in 2012, while she was married to her brother, she had a baby by another man whose last name was Hirsi,” Mace says. “When that was announced online, her brother-husband, her then brother-husband, wrote online that it was his niece. If you’re married to a man who says your baby is his niece, that is, in fact, your brother, meaning that is your brother-husband.”
“And then on top of that, on that post, her brother-husband said that she had a baby that was, quote, fresh out of her vagina,” she adds. “What kind of man says that about his sister or his sister’s wife?”
Mace’s account of the online posts could not be independently verified.
She also brings up Omar’s interview on MS NOW’s “All In with Chris Hayes” on Wednesday, the first since federal agents searched her Washington home.
This week, Chris Hayes pressed Ilhan about whether she married her brother, and she replied, “Not to my knowledge.” As Mace notes, the clip shows Hayes insisting, “You were not related to him at all,” and Omar replying, “Not that.” Then Hayes asked if any kernel of truth survives some game of telephone, to which Omar answered, “Not to my knowledge is what she said,” Mace adds. “And the media just don’t cover it. Just let it lapse. Let her get away with it.”
In the full interview, Omar calls the allegation that she married her brother “insane” and says it started on a Somali blog. Her “not to my knowledge” replies come after Hayes questioned whether she was related to Elmi in any way. In a 2016 statement, Omar described the insinuation that Elmi is her brother as “absurd and offensive.”
Mace concludes by bringing up the federal investigation.
“Not the feds. They’re going after Ilhan for the lies and potential fraud. Thank God,” she says, adding, “I see you’re not subscribed. Hit that subscribe button right now.”
Homeland Security Investigations agents searched Omar’s Washington home on October 12th, under a judge’s warrant. The Justice Department has described the search as part of an ongoing federal criminal probe, reportedly focusing on whether Omar or her deceased father gave false information on immigration paperwork when the family arrived in the United States from Somalia in 1995. No charges have been filed yet.
The controversy around the names came from a Justice Department motion filed Wednesday seeking additional time to respond to requests to unseal records related to the search. The motion referred to Omar as “Ilhan Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Abdullahi Omar” without explaining the connection between the names. President Donald Trump urged Omar to resign on Thursday.
“My name has always been Ilhan Omar,” Omar posted on X. She says the investigation is political intimidation and denies any wrongdoing.
Omar legally married Elmi, a British citizen, in 2009. She says their relationship ended in 2011 and that she later reconciled with Ahmed Hirsi, the father of her three children. The couple welcomed their third child after reconciliation. The divorce from Elmi was finalized in 2017, and she married Hirsi legally in 2018.
Mace had been pressing the issue for months. During a House Oversight Committee hearing on January 7th, she tried to subpoena Omar and Elmi’s immigration records. The committee rejected the motion, and Mace later said that “Democrats and Republicans teamed up to kill our motion.”
As her term in Congress ends in January, Mace is leaving after finishing fifth in South Carolina’s Republican governor primary on June 9th, saying she will return to the private sector.
In August, she launched “Get Maced,” an online daily show in which she has criticized people from both parties. This week, she also went after an ad from Ohio’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
Omar is running for reelection on November 3rd in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which includes Minneapolis.
