An incendiary photo purports to show Donald Trump’s sworn enemy Ilhan Omar with two of her husbands – one allegedly her brother – at the same event.
Trump caused uproar yesterday when he repeated the suggestion that the Democrat Congresswoman had married her own brother.
The explosive rumor first appeared during her election campaign in 2016 and prompted a furious response with Omar calling it an Islamophobic slur.
However, her conjugal arrangements are baffling in large part because she has failed to fully explain an apparent overlap in her unions to Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi (her first and current husband) and Ahmed Nur Said Elmi (her second and ex-husband).
An image purporting to show Omar with her second husband – at a time when she says they were not speaking – and others claim her first husband is in the picture too.
Ilhan Omar’s conjugal arrangements were brought back into the spotlight yesterday as President Donald Trump said: ‘I hear that she was married to her brother’
Her second husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi shared this photo yesterday using the trending FaceApp – Elmi suggested the picture had looked like Angelina Jolie
Omar in a social media posting with her children and her first and current husband Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi
‘Well there’s a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother,’ Trump said on the White House lawn. ‘I know nothing about it, I hear that she was married to her brother … I don’t know but I’m sure that somebody would be looking at that.’
When she married her second husband, a British national who had just arrived in the U.S., legal documents appear to show she was still living with her first husband.
And the trio all reportedly went off to live together in Fargo while Omar and her second husband were studying at the University of North Dakota.
It also appears that Omar’s father Nur Said Elmi Mohamed has the same name as her second husband’s father. He attended Arlington Senior High School in Minnesota and multiple former classmates say that is also the name of his father.
She has furiously dismissed claims she married her brother as ‘baseless, absurd rumors’ and accused journalists of Islamophobia.
However, she has remained evasive on the details surrounding her marriages and a campaign email obtained by the Spectator from her spokesman Ben Goldfarb shows his frustration in trying to get her out of a hole.
‘Having no [sic] tried to write a statement multiple times that says, “I’m not legally married to two people but I am legally married to one and culturally married to another”, I think it’s impossible.’ Goldfarb writes.
She says she married Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in 2002 in a shariah ceremony. No marriage certificate was signed and after having two children they divorced in 2008.
Within a year she had married a British-Somalian, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, in a suburban Minnesota registry.
A marriage certificate from 2009 appears to show her second marriage was officiated by a Christian minister at a Minnesota registry – despite her previous marriage and divorce being in strict accordance with Islamic tradition and shariah law
Minnesota State Rep. Ilhan Omar greets supporters after winning her seat in Congress – she is accompanied by her children and her husband Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi (rear right)
The marriage certificate to her second husband dated February 12, 2009
The clinical ceremony – in contrast to her previous shariah wedding – was conducted by a Christian minister Wilecia Harris. This would seem at odds with Omar’s proud faith tradition.
According to Omar, her second husband went back to the UK in 2011 after another Islamic divorce and the following year she had a third child with her first husband.
Omar has refused to comment on when and how she met the British citizen or how they became married so soon after her separation from Hirsi.
The Congresswoman has claimed that she married Elmi after she and Hirsi reached ‘an impasse in our life together.’
However, this appears to be rubbished by legal documents uncovered by the Washington Examiner which show she was still living with her first husband.
Another screen-grab from the Somali website which appears to show Omar with her second husband (bottom left panel, arrow pointed at him) – while claims have been made that her first husband can also been seen in the picture (standing rear left behind Omar who wears a blue headdress)
A post which appears to disprove Omar’s claim she could not divorce her second husband because she had been out of touch with him – this picture purportedly taken in London during the time they were not in contact
Public records show that Omar was living with Hirsi at a home in the Cedar Riverside area of Minneapolis in 2009 – the year she wed her second husband and two years before she says she re-united with Hirsi.
Furthermore, the Spectator report Omar’s first husband went to live with the pair in Fargo where she and her new husband were studying at North Dakota State University.
Her second husband moved back to London after they had a shariah divorce in 2011, according to Omar.
However, social media posts circulating on Alpha News appear to show that he had remained in Minnesota into late 2012.
That year she had her third child with her first husband and they were re-united in another Islamic wedding.
The explosive claims were blown wide open during a Minnesota Campaign and Public Disclosure Board investigation into her campaign finances which revealed in 2014 and 2015 she filed tax returns with her husband as Hirsi, while she was legally married to Elmi.
A social media post from Omar’s second husband taken in New York in 2017 purporting to be at the Trump Tower
Ilhan Omar’s second husband Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in a recent social media post – he is a British national and lives in London
She did not legally divorce Elmi until 2017. She legally married Hirsi early in 2018, just one month after divorcing her second husband.
She claims the reason for her belated divorce was because she was unable to get in contact with him after he returned to the UK.
However, social media postings uncovered by the Spectator appear to show she was in contact with her second husband and she had visited London in 2014.
In posts which were screen-grabbed from the Somalian forum where the rumor appears to have started, Omar is seen posing with Elmi in the British capital.
Not only that, but others have claimed that her first husband can also be seen with the group in London.
Omar’s ex-husband is a freelance copywriter living in London, according to his professional and social media accounts.