Kalshi price on federal charges for Ilhan Omar rises to 47% after home search

Ilhan Omar’s price in a Kalshi market on who will face federal criminal charges rose to 47%, from 14% on Oct. 1, after federal agents searched the Minnesota congresswoman’s Washington home. The market put Omar ahead of Cassidy Hutchinson at 31% and John Brennan at 22%.

The market movement followed the Oct. 12 search, conducted by Homeland Security Investigations agents under a judicially authorized warrant. The Justice Department said only that the action was part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation, without disclosing further details.

People familiar with the matter told the Associated Press that investigators were examining potential fraud in Omar’s family immigration paperwork and had issued grand-jury subpoenas to some of her relatives. A current federal official told NPR the inquiry was a multiyear probe that included whistleblower complaints; a former official described it as concerning immigration-fraud allegations.

Omar has denied wrongdoing. She said agents searched her home for four or five hours and seized 17 items, including phones, notebooks, a camera and a Somali-language children’s book. In an interview with MS NOW, she said as many as 25 agents took part and called the early-morning operation an attempt to intimidate her.

She also said the warrant included a document that would waive constitutional protections available to her as a member of Congress, which she declined to sign. Omar said the publicity around the search and death threats had made her home unsafe, and that she and her family would move.

The Justice Department has not publicly specified the suspected offences. A source familiar with the warrant told MS NOW that it listed potential immigration fraud, false statements in immigration proceedings and conspiracy. CNN-reported accounts cited by MS NOW said investigators were examining whether Omar or her late father made false statements about her age during the citizenship process.

Omar came to the United States with her family at age 12 after fleeing Somalia’s civil war and spending four years in a refugee camp in Kenya. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000. She has represented Minnesota’s 5th District, including Minneapolis, since first winning election to the House in 2018.

The inquiry revisits allegations considered during Donald Trump’s first administration. Homeland Security Investigations examined Omar and her family in 2019, but found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing and did not open a full investigation, according to MS NOW. The outlet also reported that the Biden administration looked into the matter and declined to proceed for lack of sufficient evidence.

The search came weeks before the Nov. 3 midterm elections, in which Omar is seeking reelection and control of the House and Senate is at stake. The Justice Department has an internal, nonbinding rule discouraging public investigative steps involving candidates within 60 days of Election Day. Omar called the action political targeting, while Rep. Jamie Raskin described it as political harassment and said House Judiciary Committee Democrats would seek information about its authorization and conduct.