Omar Wouldn’t Say For Sure Her Ex-Husband Wasn’t Her Brother: ‘Not to My Knowledge’

Look, I understand that the principles of plausible deniability goes a long way in Washington, D.C. I get that a well-placed “I have no recollection of that, senator” is sometimes a heck of a lot better than a yes or a no, especially if you’re under oath.

However, if the question is whether you married a man who is your brother and the response is “not to my knowledge,” come on. 

You probably already know who and what I’m talking about, but for the uninitiated, the rumor that Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar wed her brother as part of a feint to get him permanent residency status in the United States is a lot more than a rumor now that sources say that they have DNA evidence linking the two as siblings.

The New York Post said that the DNA match had been obtained as part of a “years-long” investigation into Omar and her family, and play into a larger case investigating whether “Omar — and possibly members of her family like her father — defrauded immigration authorities.”

Moreover, the Post’s Miranda Devine noted that she had a source that had confirmed Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, Omar’s second husband, was also her brother, but that her informant was scooped up by the FBI under President Joe Biden:

Ahem. Five years ago I wrote a column about DNA test results that showed there was a 99.999998 percent chance that Ilhan Omar and her second husband Ahmed Elmi were siblings. A few hours before we went to press my informant was arrested by Biden’s FBI. Funny that. https://t.co/MEBWf5U7pv

— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) October 20, 2026

So, Omar — who’s been mostly in hiding since a raid on her house last week by immigration authorities, a raid sources say was predicated on allegations that she falsified information on her naturalization documents and continued falsifying it — went onto the friendly confines of MS NOW for a not-terribly-searching interview aired Wednesday night about whether or not she’d done anything awry.

It was, for the most part, an exercise in tee-ball, where Hayes would gently set up a question about the perfidies of the right wing and Omar would hit it as hard as she could. Then came the matter of her brother, which Hayes approached in a laughing manner.

“Who was this man that was your husband? When did they start saying that he was your brother? Why?” Hayes asked.

She explained that the story started on a “Somali blog” that may not still exists but said “he had to have been my brother or something to that effect.”

“And right-wing conspiracy theorists in Minneapolis got a hold of it and they just kind of went and found random people who were like, ‘She introduced us. She introduced him to us and said he was her brother.’ Which is insane,” Omar said.

OK, but: ” He was not — you were not related to him at all?” Hayes said. “Not that there’s not some weird kernel of truth that through some–“

“Not to my knowledge,” Omar said.

You can almost see this moment play out in Adam McKay’s version of “The Ilhan Omar Story” when it hits the theaters. Here’s where the record scratches, the video stops and where Chris Hayes — played by Ryan Gosling — says, in voice-over: “That’s when I knew she was lying.” And “Sweet Child O’ Mine” begins playing, growing ever louder over the rest of the interview.

Anyhow, this is just two theater-kid politicians, so it’s considerably less interesting:

Ilhan Omar denies that she married her brother: “Not to my knowledge.” https://t.co/uxRq3i08zP

— TheBlaze (@theblaze) October 22, 2026

Social media didn’t buy it:

🚨 BREAKING: Ilhan Omar, when asked if she married her brother, answers “NOT TO MY KNOWLEDGE”

That might just be the most unconvincing answer in HISTORY 🤣

She KNOWS that the feds taking her DNA is going to expose it ALL. Tick tock, Ilhan Nur Said Elmi a/k/a Ilhan Omar! https://t.co/0smbNSYYcn

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 22, 2026

Chris Hayes asked Ilhan Elmi, aka Ilhan Omar. whether there’s “some weird kernel of truth” to claims that her ex-husband Ahmed Elmi was her brother,

Her answer? “Not to my knowledge.” https://t.co/AWWnU2MW0g

— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) October 22, 2026

And President Donald Trump didn’t buy it, either.

“Yeah, well, ‘not to my knowledge’ — that’s not a good answer,” Trump told reporters.

🚨 LMFAO! President Trump just FLAMED Ilhan Omar for answering “NOT TO MY KNOWLEDGE” when asked if she married her brother

“Yeah, well ‘not to my knowledge’… that’s NOT a good answer. That’s an answer a LOT of us assume.” 🤣

She’s TOTALLY cooked! 😂 https://t.co/GpHvia7rh2

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) October 22, 2026

And nobody should buy it. Most of the world, perhaps save for the example of Oedipus and Jocasta, knows when they’re committing incest by entering into a marriage with a close family member. This is doubly true when that marriage just so happens to conveniently get someone a green card.

Virtually nobody, in this day and age, ends up in court telling a judge, “How the heck was I supposed to know he was my brother?”

This is precisely what Ilhan Omar is expecting us to believe — that a law-school graduate and four-term congresswoman doesn’t know for sure whether she’s married her sibling. Give us a break.

It goes without saying that Omar’s position is a complicated one: She can’t just hide from the cameras as the investigation unfolds, but if they really do have the goods on her, she can’t say that she knows for certain he wasn’t her brother when he was.

However, if she can’t even speak definitively to the fact that the man she married wasn’t a family member, the next few months are going to be an unusually rocky patch for Rep. Omar and everyone who’s cosigned her political career, even by the standards of U.S. politics. Hate to say we told you so, but …

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