A recent television exchange renewed questions around a former marriage of U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, while the court judgment cited in the dispute records a divorce and makes no finding about family ties.
During an Oct. 21 interview on MS NOW, host Chris Hayes asked whether there was a “weird kernel of truth” to the allegation that Ahmed Nur Said Elmi was Omar’s brother. Omar answered, “Not to my knowledge.” She said the rumor began with a Somali blog and called accounts that she had introduced Elmi as her brother “insane.”
Omar outlined earlier relationships in a 2016 statement. She said she and Ahmed Hirsi applied for a marriage license in 2002 but did not complete the process, and that their relationship ended under their faith tradition in 2008. She later legally married Elmi in 2009, she said. Omar said that relationship ended in 2011 and that they also divorced under their faith tradition. In the statement, she called the sibling suggestion “absurd and offensive.”
The Hennepin County decree names Omar and Elmi in a marriage-dissolution case and records the judgment’s entry on Dec. 4, 2017. It documents the end of their civil marriage but does not address whether they were related.
MPR News reported that Omar legally married Hirsi on Jan. 5, 2018. She filed for divorce in October 2019, MPR News reported, and the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the divorce was finalized Nov. 5 that year. The couple has three children. Omar announced on Instagram on March 11, 2020, that she had married political consultant Tim Mynett.
The University of Bristol lists an Ahmed Elmi as a graduate teacher and doctoral researcher. Hindustan Times identified that researcher as Omar’s former husband; the university profile does not mention Omar or give Elmi’s full name.
