Joe Radinovich, a former Minnesota Democratic lawmaker turned party operative, publicly declared that allegations Rep. Ilhan Omar married her brother are “almost certainly true” in a series of posts on X Thursday.
Radinovich, who served in the Minnesota House of Representatives from 2013 to 2015 and later managed Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s 2017 campaign, broke with Democratic efforts to dismiss the claims as a right-wing conspiracy. The 36-year-old operative has deep ties to the state’s Democratic establishment, having also run Rick Nolan’s 2016 congressional campaign and worked on two unsuccessful primary challenges against Omar alongside Don Samuels in 2022 and 2024.
“Democrats should understand that the allegation is almost certainly true — whatever conclusions they draw from that point could vary — and her denials calling it a right-wing, Islamophobic or racist conspiracy are almost certainly not,” Radinovich wrote on X.
He pressed further on questions about Omar’s finances, urging caution among his party colleagues. “And then I’d very, very careful about how I qualified on allegations around her finances — where her defense looks similar and where no meaningful questions have been answered publicly, and where any objective look at the evidence doesn’t look…great,” he added.
Briana Rose Lee, a Minneapolis Democratic activist who previously worked in Omar’s campaign operation, confronted Radinovich directly on the platform. “Joe. You aren’t stupid. You know this is a baseless and manufactured witch hunt. I’m actually surprised to see this from you,” Lee wrote. “It’s a new low.”
Randinovich refused to retreat. “You’re right. I’m not stupid,” he fired back, noting his own skepticism of President Trump’s Justice Department and questioning the timing of the federal raid on Omar’s Washington residence. “Though it’s pretty notable that a DC judge signed off on it,” he continued, before declaring that he’s “pretty confident this specific allegation is true.”
In a separate post, Radinovich argued that belief in Omar’s denials now requires willful disregard for accumulating evidence. “Vibes is what it would take to believe her at this point,” he wrote. “There’s plenty of evidence and sourcing available if you don’t dismiss it out of hand.”
Omar’s campaign responded sharply to Radinovich’s claims in a statement on Friday. “Joe is a deeply troubled individual whose demons have sadly manifested as an irrational obsession with Congresswoman Omar after managing two losing campaigns against her,” the campaign said.
“His claims are false, biased, and without any evidence. While he was once seen as a rising star within the party, Joe is now widely recognized as a shill for Republican and Corporate money,” the campaign continued.
The public feud unfolds as federal investigators probe Omar’s immigration history and finances. Homeland Security Investigation agents raided her Washington D.C. Home on Oct. 12, seizing her passport, phone and computer. Investigators are examining whether Omar or her late father, Nur Mohamed, fraudulently provided information on citizenship paperwork decades ago, a line of inquiry that could potentially affect her citizenship status.
The marriage fraud allegations have trailed Omar for nearly a decade. She has repeatedly denied claims that she married Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009 as part of an alleged immigration fraud scheme. Federal authorities first opened an investigation into the alleged marriage scheme during the Obama administration in 2016; that probe remained active until 2021, when the Biden administration closed it. No criminal charges have ever been filed against Omar, and her office continues to characterize the claims as “politically motivated smears.”
Randinovich’s intervention marks a rare public breach in Democratic ranks over the controversy, with a longtime party insider explicitly rejecting the conspiracy-theory framing that has become the standard Democratic response. His stance carries particular weight given his previous attempts to unseat Omar through primary challenges, lending him insider knowledge of her political operation even as it provides her campaign with ammunition to paint him as a disgruntled rival.
Federal investigators have not indicated when their current probe might conclude or whether charges are anticipated.