Omar
released a lengthy statement when she first ran for office in 2016 to address the persistent rumors that she married her brother, which she called "absurd and offensive," and gave the following timeline of her marriage history:
- She married her first and current husband, Ahmed Hirsi, in an Islamic faith ceremony in 2002 when she was 19, but the couple did not obtain a legal marriage certificate. The couple had two children together from 2002 to 2008.
- Omar and Hirsi split in 2008, also in a faith-based (not legal) proceeding.
- Omar legally married her second husband, Elmi, in 2009.
- Elmi and Omar separated just two years later, in 2011, but did not get a legal divorce. Elmi moved back to London.
- Omar and Hirsi got back together in 2012 and had their third child while Omar was separated from but still legally married to Elmi.
- Omar officially divorced Elmi in 2017 and legally married Hirsi in 2018.
But since then, numerous public documents obtained and reported by news outlets including the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the Washington Examiner cast doubt on Omar's official timeline of her marriage and relationship history.
Read more:
Ilhan Omar calls Trump a 'fascist' after 'send her back' chant: 'Because I criticized the president, I should be deported?'
As
the Star Tribune reported in June, Omar filed joint tax returns with Hirsi in 2014 and 2015 while she was still legally married to Elmi, and she was fined by Minnesota's campaign-finance watchdog for paying a lawyer with campaign funds to fix the mistake, since federal law prohibits people from filing joint returns with a person who is not their spouse.
At about the same time,
the Examiner published a story reporting that in dozens of publicly available traffic violation and court records, Hirsi "listed his address at a single Cedar Riverside address consistently in 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011," the same address Omar listed in separate traffic-violation cases, including during the time he was split from Omar.
The Examiner further discovered
a 2013 local news article that said "Omar and her husband, Ahmed Hirsi, moved to North Dakota so that Omar could finish her bachelor's degree in political science" from 2009 to 2011, the exact time frame during which she was legally married to Elmi, who also attended North Dakota State.
Complicating matters further, both the Star Tribune and the Examiner reported that Omar and Elmi listed an address in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights on their 2009 marriage-license application — and it was the same location Hirsi listed as his home address when applying for a business license with the state government that same year.
Read more:
#IStandWithIlhan: Bernie Sanders, George Takei, and Susan Sarandon are among thousands voicing support for the congresswoman after Trump rally attendees chanted 'send her back'
Omar has not yet given a clear explanation as to why so many public documents point to her and Hirsi living together and being romantically involved while she was legally married to another man, but there is no solid evidence to support the theory that Elmi is Omar's brother.