CNN’s Jake Tapper and a CNN legal analyst threw cold water on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) claims that the Trump DOJ is being weaponized against her, with Tapper admitting that she should have turned herself in when the investigation started under Biden.
CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig also justified the ongoing investigation by citing a range of potential crimes she committed, while admitting that arguments of a politically motivated prosecution are likely to fail.
“Most federal crimes in the immigration area will have a maximum of a five-year statute of limitations,” said Honig before outlining possible exceptions to the statute of limitations for immigration-related charges.
“We’re obviously well beyond that from 2000, so there could be a couple possibilities: One, some offenses say that if a person gets into the country or gets status by making false statements and then remains in the country, that will extend — the person remaining in the country will extend the statute of limitations,” he said.
“Two, it could be that more recent paperwork was submitted, perhaps a reapplication or renewal; it could be somebody relating to Representative Omar, somebody around her.”
And then three, if prosecutors have evidence that within the last five years there’s been some evidence of obstruction, some effort to get stories straight, to destroy documents, to persuade potential witnesses to say a certain thing, then those obstruction charges, if they happened within the last five years, would also be within the statute of limitations,” he continued.
Tapper then suggested that Omar should have turned herself in long ago, when the Biden Administration opened an investigation into her, in order to receive a slap on the wrist.
“If this is true, would it not have been wiser for the congresswoman to have gone to the Biden Justice Department and said, ‘this has happened, and there was a mistake, and I’d like to come clean and pay whatever fine,’ and then that way this is, you know, not left up to the Trump Justice Department? Is that, I mean, has that occurred to you?” he asked Honig.
That’s when Honig said a damning fact for Omar: While she “might have fared better under the Biden administration,” the fact that the investigation started under Biden destroys her argument that the investigation is politically motivated.
“It’s an important point of all this: There was some investigation… that was started under the Biden administration, reopened under the Trump administration,” Honig said.
“So, I think that’s going to undermine any argument she may have down the line that this is politically selective and vindictive,” he added, arguing that Trump has still “given her plenty of ammo to argue that she’s being singled out.”
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Additionally, as The Gateway Pundit reported, the investigation is not just focused on Omar’s immigration and whether she lied to obtain citizenship, according to US Attorney Jeanine Pirro.
Pirro said in an interview this week that there are “several investigations going on,” suggesting that the civil or criminal immigration issues and other financial crimes may be involved, including Omar’s financial disclosures and $30 million net worth. Trump also simultaneously signaled that the probe is centered on Omar’s “money that was stolen from her fraudulent activities in Minnesota.”
And on Wednesday, we learned that the Feds seized Ilhan Omar’s phone when they raided her DC residence earlier this week and that members of Omar’s family have been subpoenaed.
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