As the News Blender mentioned on Wednesday morning the President is holding a campaign rally from Greenville, North Carolina.
The rally originally scheduled as a “counter” to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony before two House Committees, now comes as he continues to defend racist tweets the President sent on Sunday in which he told 4 freshman Reps. to “go back” to where they came from.
Prior to departing the White House for North Carolina the President spoke with the media, during which he offhandedly says that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) married her brother.
Days suggesting Ilhan Omar should go back to Somali, Trump spreads unfounded conspiracy theories about her: "There's a lot of talk about the fact that she was married to her brother. I know nothing about it … I don't know but I'm sure that somebody would be looking at that." pic.twitter.com/XapFKFgEXH
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 17, 2019
In February of 2019 Snopes.com explained that the rumor, “Ilhan Omar married her brother to help him immigrate to the U.S.,” was a rumor that “first appeared in 2016 as an anonymous, since-deleted post on SomaliSpot, an online discussion forum geared toward the Somali community. Despite being unverified, the post was picked up by Powerline, a blog that “features commentary on the news from a conservative perspective.”
In response to the rumor in 2016 Omar released a statement that denied the claim, saying that she was married to a British Citizen, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, in 2009, ended the marriage with Elmi in 2011.
The couple divorced she writes, “in our faith tradition,” she adds that she did not seek a legal divorce until 2016.
I entered into a relationship with a British citizen, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, and married him legally in 2009. Our relationship ended in 2011 and we divorced in our faith tradition. After that, he moved home to England. I have yet to legally divorce Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, but am in the process of doing so. Insinuations that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi is my brother are absurd and offensive.
Omar statement.
Snopes concludes by explaining there is no documentation that shows Omar married her brother to obtain legal status, they note, she as a U.S. Citizen at 17, would not have had to commit fraud in order to provide her “brother” or relative legal status, she could have sponsored the brother to obtain legal U.S. citizenship.
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