Apparently Donald Trump mentioned “offhandedly,” but likely
with intent, that Ilhan Omar may have married her brother. This seemed to catch
even many Republicans by surprise, which surprises me. Scott Johnson at Powerline
has been reporting this for over a year and I thought lots of people knew
that. Here is the most recent research https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/07/david-steinberg-tying-up-loose-threads-in-the-curious-case.php,
in case you missed it. It is quite
convincing that she married her brother in 2009 in an immigration manipulation,
and that this is not only fraud, but bigamy.
This, in addition to the years of tax fraud she is accused of, though I
don’t know anything about that. I admit I am predisposed to believe it. It
brings up the very interesting story of how little news suppression is needed
to be effective. There are suddenly some Democrats saying – I think sincerely,
at least for some – that they had not heard of this before.
The Powerline accounts will of course be biased toward the
POV “Hey, we’ve been saying this repeatedly for months but the major newspapers
and networks won’t pick it up.” They have reported it being treated
dismissively, of conservative conspiracy theorists manufacturing mountains out
of molehills. With that signal, other news providers have shrugged and said
“Oh, of course. That’s what’s really
happening here. We’ll just move along,
sir. It’s just more Birthers and whatnot.”
Therefore it has not even made it to
page three status and has caught people by surprise. It takes very few liars for such things to succeed, though it takes a great many people of lesser dishonesty, just shrugging and not being intellectually rigorous. While the evidence is
tedious to wade through – evidence often is – it is not difficult in any way.
It includes such things as a single FB account with a name change from Leila
Eimi to Leyla Cilmi, with the same (now rather recognizable) photo, immediately as the
first reports of this came out. Yeah, it’s the same person. Same account, similar
names, same photo. I don’t know how one would construct that as evidence in a
court case to prove it, but it looks res
ipsa loquitur to me. Your mileage may vary.
The evidence looks damning to me, but I lost my objectivity on this over
a year ago, when I only knew of her as a mildly irritating new member of
Congress. Someone else might see holes in that I missed.
28 comments:
I've been reading this in Powerline for some time, and I can't see any holes in the story. That no else but Scott appears interested in covering the story is a disgrace. There's tax fraud as well as immigration fraud, in case no one cares about bigamy per se, and campaign finance infractions.
From what I've read, she had a "cultural wedding" (her campaign's words) to her first husband. She had a cultural divorce to him and then had a legal registered wedding in front of a so-called Christian clergywoman to husband #2. She then had another cultural divorce to husband #2 and then had a legally registered marriage to husband #1 again.
If she can finagle her way out of the tax cheating--and given how the Congressional IT scandal was covered up I don't doubt she will--then the bigamy charges can be dismissed as a cultural misunderstanding by those wanting make the situation go away.
I thought the first registered marriage done by the clergywoman was an interesting touch because it probably invalidates the marriage in her culture's eyes so there's no sin or crime in that community's eyes. They know it was a sham.
As one of the Powerline guys put it, there's no 'unmarried filing jointly' box on a 1040. Either she had a full legal marriage to the guy she was filing returns with or she didn't.
I believe she filed those returns before and then during the period when it's unclear exactly which of the two men, if not both, she claimed to be married to for tax and immigration reasons. They are also quite recent (2014 and 2015, IIRC) which should mean that trying a 'I didn't understand the law' dodge shouldn't work. Her assertions on the timing and structure of the two marriages have been pretty much taken as gospel by the MSM without any attempt at independent verification.
The whole thing started because her father apparently claimed a false relationship with another family group that had been granted asylum. It's not clear if he did this just to jump the line, or because he has ties to criminal or terrorist groups that would make an independent asylum claim a problem. That isn't really on Ilhan because she was only 12 at the time but it's not a good look given the focus on false asylum claims at our southern border. Part of Ilhan's family wound up in England and I think reverted to using their original name, which appears to have been the reason for the attempted US immigration fraud via 'marriage' to her brother.
I've already seen a fair amount of comments that indicate the Left are going to lean heavily on a 'you bigots' defense of Ilhan. Lots of sand being thrown around the cultural marriage thing. Claims that we need conveniently almost impossible to obtain records from Somalia in order to sort out the whole thing. I haven't yet but I'm sure we're going to see "all black people look alike to you racists" in regard to the FB posts and name changes on FB accounts.
There's a lot of dodgy talk about how she was married and divorced at various times "within her faith tradition," and at other times within stuffy old Islamophobic culturally insensitive Minnesota law. For federal tax purposes, at least, the only one that counts is Minnesota law, which requires a straight-up legal ceremony, no common-law exceptions. To judge by whom she's bearing and raising children with, she was "really" married to husband number one, then fake-married to number two (her brother?), then really re-married to husband number one.
But certainly, trying to sort any of this out is flagrantly racist and unhip.
The campaign finance infraction was using campaign donations to pay her legal fees for trying to untangle the marriage fraud and its impact on immigration and tax benefits.
“...or because he has ties to criminal or terrorist groups that would make an independent asylum claim a problem.“
According to her, he was an officer of the Marxist-Leninist government in Somalia before it descended into the anarchy it is now. Not that she’s explained that in so many words, but Communists has a much harder time immigrating closer to the Cold War.
http://datechguyblog.com/2019/07/16/red-green-omar/
*had a much...
Boxty's information is interesting, that her own culture may not think she has done much wrong. But from an immigration POV, whether it is a sham marriage being used to defraud or a real marriage being used to defraud doesn't much matter.
Seems to me it's been on for 3 years at PowerLine.
On the other hand, it was Somalis who provided the information that she had married her brother.
It's really interesting the way something that is potentially this toxic could be suppressed successfully for so long. The way to solve this problem using 'fight dirty' tactics would be to surreptitiously harvest the DNA from the two of them. If it's a match, then armed with the certainty of 'knowing', plot the way legally to maneuver the subpoena for the official DNA screening and subsequent prosecution/deportation circus. Done properly it will be impossible for Omar to refuse to be tested without manifestly admitting guilt. Not saying she's guilty - I'm just pretty sure, based on all these circumstances, that she could never be honestly referred to as 'innocent'.
To be clear though, this does not invalidate her citizenship. It would be fraud, but her citizenship is not in question. I think that’s worth calling out, in light of the recent brouhaha about “going back “. I can’t stand the woman, and she definitely looks to be committing fraud, but I think some people (not here) have seized on this as an excuse for saying the “go back” comments are OK, and I disagree with that.
It's not her citizenship application that was aided by the citizenship, it was his, or maybe that of other family members.
I can't get interested in the controversy over "send her back." I'd just like to see her held to legal account instead of being treated as above the law because she belongs to the privileged party. My tolerance for antisemitism is razor-thin, particularly from someone who likes to whine about racism and inclusion. She's pretty much used up my patience on the socialism front as well.
There is a difference between threatening to send someone back and telling them they should go back, because they don't appreciate what they've got here. This applies to the rest of the Squad as well. It is not saying "we don't want your kind here," it is saying "You, specifically, not because of your color or ethnicity, but what you have said and done, are not worthy of the gifts you have received." Just because Trump - or others - would say "go back where you came from" if they were bigots is not evidence that they are bigots. Just because it could be true does not mean it is true. That is a logical leap, which people who don't like him are willing to make, but I don't believe is justified.
Going back to Somalia for a long visit might be instructive. Short visits are just photo-ops.
I should probably add a base assumption for my comment. When people are good with language, they quickly go to the interpretation of what most people would mean. As in, the interpretation of "go back where they came from" (I have not looked at Trump's exact words and context. Those may also be important.) has implications of what most people would probably mean when they said it. I think it is best to avoid that automatic conclusion in general, and especially so with Trump. He does not speak or choose phrases as others do. It may be negotiator-speak rather than communicator-speak, or some other idiosyncratic usage. I would prefer he be good at communicator-speak, because I think that's part of his job. But I am not sure that how he speaks is not useful in some other way, particularly if it is negotiator-speak of some sort.
Trump, the president of the US is a fraud who has lied and said he would release his taxes for years and then not done it. He gets the benefit of the doubt from this group while you all wring your hands over a rep and her “possible” tax issues.
Omar is excoriated for everything she says, yet some here dismiss and discount taking a man, who never stops revealing his base, disgusting motives and animus in very easily understood language, at his word.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ilhan-omar-marry-brother/
AVI, but the thing about “go back” is “where”? Three of them are from America. To me, it’s tied in with his comments on Judge Curiel- this assumption that because someone isn’t white they are unduly influenced by “where they came from.” I don’t give him a pass on this one because it’s a tweet- if it was a verbal statement I’d be more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Honestly it also smacks of whites in the South in the 60s telling black people to “go back to Africa” (though without the irony of that statement being said to folks who were descended from people forcibly takwn from their home).
If only we could get bad leaders out of office for lying! Even lying under oath doesn't always do the trick. Straight-up fraud in a federal filing, though, should have consequences. Maybe not being ousted from office, and certainly not forfeiture of citizenship, but the spectacle of the press and many agencies deliberately covering for her gets up my nose.
My hope now is that the voters will tire of her. Not many public figures achieve a 9% approval rating combined with considerable name recognition: that's basically down to family members and staff. There's not much left to say about her except that we should try to be fair even to appalling people, and that there surely exist more appalling people in the world.
@ Liza - I no longer accept Snopes as it has become politicised - and inaccurate.
Your language is intemperate, your reference to his "base" is inaccurate and an attempt to paint with a broad brush, and you in turn seem unworried about information that Democrats have refused to disclose, as if Trump's tax records are some new fault previously unknown. Bill Clinton would not release his medical records, John Kerry would not release his service records, Barack Obama would not reveal his academic records.
@ Granite Dad - Fair enough. AOC's parents were Puerto Rican and she identifies strongly with that community, but that's not the same thing. Tlaib is also second generation, with a strong identification with the Palestinian community, but that is also not the same thing. Immigrant groups sometimes do that with some intensity.
Pressley's family seems to have been American for generations.
I never mentioned Trump's base.
My language is intemperate? Only when it comes to Trump, but I think "accurate" is a more likely description of my language.
Powerline is not a reputable source in general and sourced this story from even less reputable sources. Does Powerline even have an actual source other than anonymous postings online?
Pivoting to Clinton, Obama, and Kerry is not particularly relevant to this discussion. But if we must, medical and academic records are generally considered private and are not typically released in full even if someone chooses to release them. Tax records, on the other hand, have been released by almost all political candidates at almost all political levels and political stripes.
Do we have Trump's academic records? His tax records? Has any other political candidate required everyone working for them to sign non-disclosure agreements?
The attention in this thread and in conservative media focuses on 2 year representatives whose power is diluted among hundreds of other political members while ignoring the very same issues writ large in an executive with broad powers who out-performs any of these representatives when it comes to intemperate, divisive, hateful speech, lack of transparency, campaign shenanigans, and overall corruption.
Something, something about sepcks, logs, and eyes.
No one needs to try and parse Trump's speech and actions. He doesn't need the benefit of the doubt or long ponderings over what he actually means. He never stops talking and doing things to show that he means the actual words that he says. He isn't a negotiator. He is simply a disgraceful human being and American.
You don't have to take my biased word for it. Read his Twitter feed. Watch his countless rallies. Listen to him at press conferences. Look at the lies and manipulations his administration engages in at his encouragement. He is consistent and unabashed.
If he was your neighbor, your boss, your fellow church member (as if), or your co-worker, it would take only a few interactions for you to evaluate what kind of man he is and that he really means what he says.
If the response to this is to say "Democrats! Obama! Clinton!" then maybe the question is why a person who is wielding so much power right now is getting a pass from Republicans who were so upset about previous administrations. It's like comparing a rainstorm with a cat 5 hurricane.
PS. Puerto Ricans are Americans/US Citizens and have been so for over 100 years.
I honestly find this puzzling. I was horrified by most of what former President Obama did and said in public, but aside from losing my temper over the destruction of my health insurance, I mostly let it pass. I figured my job was to work to elect conservatives and be patient. Do Trump's opponents on the whole genuinely not believe that Obama's (or Hillary Clinton's) opponents had equally intense and well-founded reasons for revulsion? They can't have been paying much attention.
1. Do Trump's opponents on the whole genuinely not believe that Obama's (or Hillary Clinton's) opponents had equally intense and well-founded reasons for revulsion?
Of course we know. We are reminded daily because even though Clinton lost almost three years ago the right is still obsessed with her. Obama has been out of office for three years and yet Trump and many of his supporters can't seem to stop bringing him up. But that is neither here nor there.
The point I am making is that Trump is everything that conservatives of 4 years ago said that they hated, except in an unbelievably more potent form.
Not this conservative. My objections to him in the primary were that I didn't think he could win, and I suspected him of being a liberal squish in conservative garb, to judge from some things he'd said in his youth. I was wrong on both counts. I don't even know what you could mean by suggesting that Trump is everything I said four years ago I hated. He's confirmed a lot of Federalist-Society-approved jurists. He's dismantled a lot of silly regulation. He got us out of several ill-judged international pacts. He's doing exactly the kind of thing I always wanted a president to do. The contrast between him and either Obama or Clinton couldn't be more stark.
@ Liza - for a person who switched to Trump's tax returns, I don't think you are in a good position to complain about me changing the subject. I think my follow-on hews closely to what you wrote about that.
I misread your use of "base," seeing it as a noun instead of an adjective. You were not generalising, merely mind-reading motives. The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, himself quite liberal, has research showing that liberals are not well able to discern conservative motives, while conservatives score quite well on predicting the moral reasoning of liberals. Ironically, the liberals are much more sure they are right about it, however. As you are here.
I don't know your basis for not believing that Powerline is a credible source. They are certainly biased, but many of them are attorneys and have some idea how an position might be supported or attacked, and what actual evidence is.
Over the years, though I have taken sides, I think I have been temperate in not hating everything Obama said, nor either Clinton; nor have I praised everything said by Trump, not both Bushes, etc. You are presenting things as 100%-0%. I have a decade of identifying that as a mark of a fanatic, who is unable to listen to anything contrary. News sources and comment sites that lean left will often highlight the statements of a Republican congressman they find objectionable. This is not some new thing. I think it is reasonable. It is good to keep some perspective and recognise that a state senator introducing legislation in Missouri is not the voice of the Republican Party in the same way that a Schumer or Pelosi is the voice of the Democrats. That has in fact been one of my objections in news reporting over the years, claiming that the right is violent when the actual violence comes much more often from the left; that the right is insulting and unfair when they are taking examples from comment sections and I am taking mine from US Senators or even presidents.
The "pass" you believe Trump is getting from all Republicans (because you did not modify) fails to acknowledge the many Trump critics among them. Try to quickly think of a Democrat who was a major opponent of Obama, or of Bill Clinton. Times up. You couldn't. Every group feels very strongly that the other side is being hypocritical, leaving out important items and highlighting unimportant ones. The trick is to examine whether that is actually so and imagining counter-arguments before making hyperbolic claims about rainstorms and Cat 5 hurricanes. Obama has told some serious lies. I imagine all presidents have.
Hillary Clinton, until about six months ago, continued to put herself forward. Obama left office about 2.5 years ago. As one can still find people railing about Bush, or even Reagan, and Obama is the most recent president of the other party, it is not in the least surprising he is still referred to often.
I made comparison about a topic (tax returns) that was directly mentioned in the post and in comments. I didn't "switch". I wondered at the wringing of hands about Omar's potential "tax-cheating" when conservatives don't even know, and couldn't even know, about their own leader's taxes. That isn't a jump or a switch.
The post wonders about people shrugging off concern and ignoring "evidence" and in this same thread Trump's comments about people needing to "go back to where they came from" are shrugged off, ignored or explained away. If you can't, or won't, see the point I am trying to make and keep assuming my comments are non-sequiturs. There's not much I can do about that.
Your style of argument is long on attitude and short on facts. It won't be popular here.
That's partly fair. I mentioned Omar's tax returns, but specifically in the context of knowing nothing about them. The focus was on fraudulently obtaining citizenship for her brother. Others mentioned the filing status in regards to that, and another rather cynically observed that tax problems were unlikely to be regarded as a big deal for a sitting member of Congress. To then go at this post and this thread in the context of Trump's tax-returns seems a bit like shooting at anything that moves, rather reflexive, but it is true it was not entirely out of the blue.
As to evidence, I continue to assert that more was read into Trump's comments than was there. He has not said that all Puerto Ricans (and yes, I am aware they are citizens. You are coming in late and don't know my knowledge of citizenship and have some excuse, but you also assume more than is accurate about me. Puerto Ricans know they have citizenship. They themselves regard themselves as something different and set apart, more so than Romanian-Americans [that's a hint], Irish-Americans, or even African-Americans and Native Americans do). Granite Dad's pushback that Trump is picking on their foreignness when that is both technically untrue and out-of-step with longstanding American tradition I acknowledged. I still don't see only supposition, not evidence that this has anything to do with their color. Until very recently, folks like Desi Arnaz and Omar Sharif were regarded as mildly exotic white people. Calling them people of color now - in my opinion an insult to black struggles - is a political manipulation.
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