Omar says raid was trying to ‘freak her out,’ 17 items including phones taken

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said the federal law enforcement raid on her home was an attempt to “freak all of us out,” revealing that agents took 17 items, including her phones.

“Well, I mean, you don’t show up to somebody’s house that early in the morning unless you’re trying to freak them out,” Omar told MS NOW’s Chris Hayes. “And, you know, it obviously did freak all of us out. I only had two and a half hours of sleep when they came, pounding on the doors.”

The lawmaker described how Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers “surrounded the house” at 6:00 a.m. before “pounding on the back door and the front door.”

“We were screaming. We were coming down. Our bedroom’s upstairs, trying to put on clothes and, you know, trying to run down before they broke the door,” she continued.

She said the agents provided her a search warrant before going “room by room” and seizing 17 items, including her phone and other electronics.

“They took my phone, an old phone, I believe, that was a travel phone of mine. My youngest daughter’s first phone was also old, sitting in her room. And then a phone that I’d just gotten replaced that was still in my possession,” she said.

“I was surprised when they handed me the receipt for the items that they’d taken to do that long of a search and to walk away with 17 items of like 10 that were just notebooks and like old phones was such a bizarre, bizarre thing.”

The raid drew attention , as Justice Department policy usually discourages the escalation of politically sensitive investigations within 60 days of elections. The Justice Department said in a statement the raid was “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”

President Trump and his administration have claimed Omar’s father lied about her age when she obtained U.S. citizenship in 2000 after their family emigrated from Somalia.

The Democratic lawmaker has denied these allegations and accused the Trump administration of waging a “campaign of political intimidation” against her in a social media post following the raid.