Inside the monthslong federal investigation of Rep. Ilhan Omar

( NewsNation ) — The creator of a conservative blog who was among the first to raise questions surrounding Minnesota Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar says federal agents interviewed him in January 2026, suggesting authorities were building a case before the congresswoman’s home was raided in October.

Scott Johnson, a retired Minnesota attorney and co-founder of Powerline Blog, first began looking into Omar in 2016, when she first ran for local office.

Johnson tells NewsNation he received an unexpected call earlier this year to meet with two federal agents in Minnesota, eight months before the October raid on Omar’s Washington, D.C. home.

“In January of this year, I was contacted by two ICE agents who asked me to meet with them, and this was in the middle of Operation Metro Surge,” Johnson said.

“They asked me questions that related to issues of (Omar’s) immigration and naturalization and also questions related to her father, which would bear on the same issue,” he said. “So I inferred at the end of that hour, and from other help that they asked me for, that they were looking at a possible civil proceeding that might lead to her denaturalization.”

Johnson said agents had a “detailed knowledge” of her case when he met with them in January.

“(The investigation has) obviously carried on since then. They’ve obviously filled out the case, and I would say there must be many agents involved, and they’ve gone down several different trails,” he said.

Johnson said they asked him for documents and files related to Omar and came back to meet with him a second time to discuss some of his early sources in Minnesota’s Somali community.

The developments come amid reporting from NewsNation’s Leland Vittert that federal agents collected garbage in hopes of obtaining DNA from Omar and her family before the raid at the Minnesota Democrat’s home in Washington, D.C.

Multiple sources familiar with the probe tell NewsNation potential DNA evidence is critical to the investigation into Omar. They say the case is broader than the public may assume based on longstanding accusations surrounding her immigration history and marital status.

The investigation encompasses the congresswoman’s family members, with evidence expected to be presented to a grand jury, sources said. Relatives of the lawmaker have been named in some of the subpoenas issued by federal prosecutors, NewsNation has reported.

The 44-year-old Omar, who seeks a fifth term in Congress, was born in Somalia in 1982 , came to the U.S. around the age of 12 and about five years later became a U.S. citizen through her father.

Omar was investigated by the Department of Justice under President Biden, a Democrat, before the case was closed. Parts of that investigation were reopened and expanded under the administration of President Trump, a Republican.

Omar, a frequent political foil for Trump, says the DOJ has been weaponized against her.

She has not been seen publicly since the raid on her home but called it an “outrageous abuse of power ” in a social media post.