Former President Barack Obama, left, tried to come to the defense of Somali immigrant Rep. Ilhan Omar, right, a fellow Democrat representing Minnesota, but a lot of Americans who remember his time in office weren’t having it. (Hiroko Masuike – pool / Getty Images; Joshua Lott / Getty Images)
By Joe Saunders October 19, 2026 at 2:08pm
No one can deny reality like a Democrat — and Barack Obama might be the biggest denier of them all.
The 44th president decided to weigh in Sunday to defend Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar with a lengthy social media post pretending outrage at a federal investigation targeting the militant from Minnesota and accusing President Donald Trump of abusing his powers to persecute a political enemy.
But the backfire proved that Americans have better memories than Obama appears to think.
In a Sunday post on the social media platform X that had garnered more than 11 million views by Monday afternoon, Obama branded the Omar investigation “appalling,” and claimed that simply presenting the facts of the case would convince his readers, too.
@BarackObama The judge who signed the warrant to raid Rep. Ilhan Omar’s DC home is a Hillary Clinton donor who clerked for an Obama appointee. That fact alone demolishes the left’s claim that this is some Trump-orchestrated political hit job.
— Blake (@IamBlake19) October 18, 2026
But there are a few “facts” about Omar that Obama omitted:
He stated point-blank that the now-congresswoman received her citizenship through the naturalization of her father; she was 17 when it took place. However, Omar’s age in 2000 when her father was naturalized is actually a matter of dispute.
More tellingly, credible accusations have been raised about whether her father lied on his naturalization application to hide the fact that he was a leader in a bloodthirsty Somali dictatorship that murdered an estimated 200,000 before being forced from power.
Why didn’t you mention the fact that Ilhan Omar’s father Nur Omar Mohamed didn’t disclose on his asylum application that he was not fleeing the violent genocidal regime in Somalia, he was part of it? If he lied on his asylum application that is fraud, which makes Ilhan’s status…
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) October 19, 2026
In either case, Omar could well lose her naturalized citizenship. But those are apparently not even legal niceties to Obama — a former constitutional law professor, for heaven’s sake — since he doesn’t even consider them worth mentioning.
Even worse is the hectoring-lecturing tone he takes about an administration targeting political opponents — when his own White House spent eight years doing exactly that.
@BarackObama https://t.co/OdjYH7rvnW
— Peter St Onge, Ph.D. (@profstonge) October 19, 2026
For all his preening pretension, Obama might well have set the modern standard for misuse of the powers of the presidency.
His administration used the IRS to target conservative political groups — a fact not even denied by the IRS. In fact, it expressed its “sincere apology” in 2017, as NPR reported at the time.
What do you think about Obama defending Ilhan Omar amidst her controversies?
(Given that Obama had been safely re-elected to a second term and was already out of the White House by then, conservatives can take the sincerity of that apology with any amount of salt they wish.)
His administration spied on members of the news media — most notably now-former Fox News reporter James Rosen and now-former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson.
And it was in the waning hours of the Obama administration that the slow-motion coup of “Russia collusion” was born — a “scandal” directed by the outgoing president against the incoming president in a truly appalling betrayal of American history and tradition.
Those are just the more glaring examples of the hypocrisy evident in pretty much every word of Obama’s post.
And Americans remember them in ways Obama might regret. The post had received more than 54,000 comments by Monday afternoon — it took a good long look to find one that agreed with Obama. Deadline pressures preclude a screening of all 54,000, but it’s safe to say this is a fair sampling of the rest:
Barack Obama, the man who used the full weight of the intelligence agencies and Justice Department to spy on Donald Trump and push a fabricated Russia hoax in an attempt to undermine his presidency, now wants to lecture everyone about the weaponization of justice. The man is so…
— TMK (@themagaking) October 18, 2026
FLASHBACK: Obama’s IRS singled out Tea Party and other conservative groups for heightened scrutiny based on their names and political positions, delayed tax-exempt applications for years and demanded unnecessary donor information. The IRS ultimately admitted wrongdoing and apologized. Obama insisted there was “not even a smidgen of corruption.”
— Will Ricciardella (@WillRicci) October 18, 2026
Except you, having never really left DC after your term, willfully and maliciously went after a sitting POTUS with complete lies, weaponizing the entire judiciary towards him. Do you think we, the American people don’t see or remember the precedent you, yourself set? Now you can…
— Margie the Average American (@Margare51775614) October 19, 2026
Conservative commentator Dan Bongino summed it up well — as he often does:
This cannot be real. This petty tyrant lecturing us about “American democracy” is like being lectured by a screaming five-year-old about self-control. Sit down Mr. President, everyone knows who you really are.
— Dan Bongino (@dbongino) October 18, 2026
“This petty tyrant lecturing us about ‘American democracy’ is like being lectured by a screaming five-year-old about self-control,” Bongino wrote. “Sit down, Mr. President, everyone knows who you really are.”
Americans who remember the Obama years the way they happened know full well who the former president is — and the historical record bears it out.
That’s a reality Democrats can try to deny. It’s a reality Obama can try to deny even more than the rest.
But it’s a reality that won’t go away.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro desk editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015.
Joe has spent more than 30 years as a reporter, copy editor and metro editor in newsrooms in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Florida. He’s been with Liftable Media since 2015. Largely a product of Catholic schools, who discovered Ayn Rand in college, Joe is a lifelong newspaperman who learned enough about the trade to be skeptical of every word ever written. He was also lucky enough to have a job that didn’t need a printing press to do it.
Birthplace
Philadelphia
Nationality
American
