The story that Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother, possibly for immigration purposes, has moved from forums to the blogsphere and into the media with this Star Tribune piece.

Sent a list of questions and a request to talk to her siblings and father, Omar declined to do so. Hirsi did not reply to multiple calls, texts and e-mails. Social media posts indicate Elmi is in Africa. He did not respond to multiple e-mails.

Omar’s reticence is consistent with near total silence she has maintained for three years amid questions raised through public records picked over by conservative opinion journalists intent on proving that she committed immigration fraud. Those attacks, she once tweeted, are the provenance of “fake journalists on bigoted blogs.”

This has been going on for years. Omar could disprove it in 5 minutes. It would be easy enough to prove that Elmi wasn’t her brother. 

She’s consistently chosen not to do it.

Omar declined to make her tax and immigration records available for this report.

Why?

There should be nothing damaging in the immigration records. Should there?

Omar and Elmi used a Columbia Heights address on the marriage application. Three months later, Hirsi used the same address to obtain a business license for his One-on-One Cafe Lounge, public records show.

Omar declined to offer an account of their living arrangement at that time.

Either all three were living together or some of these filings are off.

Omar’s relatives could also clear the air, but they have remained silent about her marriage to Elmi. She declined to make her family available for this story.

Instead an effort was launched to shut down the story. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just release the documents?

Campaign e-mails disclosed by the campaign finance board also show a concerted effort to quash the Elmi story. An August 2016 internal e-mail written by campaign spokesman Ben Goldfarb, a veteran DFL operative, suggested reaching out to political newsletter writer Blois Olson “and shut it down with him as we do with the Strib.”