Ilhan Omar’s campaign spokesperson Ben Goldfarb summarized her conjugal arrangements in an email in 2016: “I’m not legally married to two people, but I am legally married to one and culturally married to another.
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That was when Omar was running for Congress and her advisers were clearing allegations of double marriage – with someone alleged to be her brother.
Omar sent the email to the Minnesota Campaign and Public Disclosure Board’s investigation.
The investigation then ordered her to pay a $500 fine and to refund $3,500 in misused campaign funds. It also revealed that she may have broken federal and state law in 2014 and 2015 by filing a joint tax return with her husband Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi when she was still married to another man.
After journalists raised the bigamy allegations the following year, Omar called the claims ‘baseless, absurd rumors.’ She also issued a statement calling the journalists ‘Islamophobia,’ according to Goldfarb’s email.
The same email seems to show that the allegations are not baseless as Goldfarb described how he tried to make a denial based on ‘real background information’ but found it ‘impossible.’
“…we are probably in a position where giving real background information is helpful in tying this up.
That said, having no tried to write a statement multiple times that says, ‘I’m not legally married to two people but I am legally married to one and culturally married to another’, I think it’s impossible without making it even more confusing.
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In 2016, Omar said that she tied the knot with Ahmed Absidala Hirsi (Husband 1) in 2002 in their Muslim ‘faith tradition’. They have two children but they decided to divorce in 2008. There was no marriage certificate and no evidence for divorce.
In 2009, Omar married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (Husband 2) and the officiator was Wilecia Harris, a Christian minister.
But documents released on Monday show that Omar and Husband 1 were living together during the time of her marriage to Husband 2. When she and Husband 2 went to college in Fargo, Husband 1 also came with them.
In 2011, Husband 2 returned to London after a ‘faith-based’ divorce. But photos from Husband 2’s social media show him still living in Minneapolis in 2012.
That same year, Omar had a third child with Husband 1 and turned him into Husband 3. But regardless of the ‘faith-tradition’ divorce, she was still married to Husband 2 in civil law.
Like what Goldfarb admitted in 2016, she was married to two people at the same time.
Omar said she couldn’t get in touch with Husband 2 so they didn’t legally divorce until 2017. She knew she was still married to him when she made her second ‘faith tradition’ marriage with Husband 1(3) in 2012.
Deleted photos appear to show that she went to London in 2014 and she was still in touch with Husband 2. Investigative journalist David Steinberg discovered that Husband 2 was in Nairobi from December 2012 and was in touch with her sister.
In 2016, an anonymous writer shared photos on a Somali site alleging that Husband 2 is actually Omar’s brother.
The post and photographs appear to disprove Omar’s claim that she couldn’t divorce husband 2 as she couldn’t find him. The posting also claims that Husband 2 refers to her children with Husband 1(3) as ‘nephews and nieces.’
The anonymous poster wrote: “A look at her social media accounts proves that at no point were her and Ahmed Hirsi [Husband 1 and 3] living apart, nor was she ever in any relationship.
“They have always been a couple, even when she was legally married to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi [Husband 2].”
The Washington Examiner published documents proving that Omar was living with Husband 1 while legally married to Husband 2.
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