We have come to expect sanctimony mixed with hypocrisy from Barack Obama. But his latest endeavor turns out to be a doozy.

Preaching his usual moral superiority, the former president recently took to social media to inveigh against the current president for targeting Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota with a criminal investigation. He called it "appalling."

Obama should have sat this one out at his luxurious spread on Martha’s Vineyard.

OBAMA BACKS ILHAN OMAR AMID PROBE, ACCUSES TRUMP ADMIN OF 'APPALLING' TARGETING IN LENGTHY STATEMENT

Lo and behold, he did the same thing when he was president. And Omar was the target. But, of course, the probe was kept under wraps. Until now.

Reporting by The New York Times reveals that Obama’s Department of Homeland Security and the FBI did a deep dive in the summer of 2016 into whether Omar entered into a sham marriage with her alleged brother, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi, to enable him to secure a green card.

OBAMA'S LENGTHY REACTION TO OMAR INVESTIGATION TRIGGERS INSTANT BACKLASH: 'SPARE ME'

Brace yourself for the result. That investigation "found some evidence that it was fraudulent," according to the Times.

Accusations of marriage fraud have long dogged Omar, who has consistently dismissed them as politically driven and a right-wing conspiracy. So much for that argument.

GREGG JARRETT: IN A TORTURED DEFENSE OF ILHAN OMAR, THE NEW YORK TIMES REACHES FOR ITS DARKEST TRUMP ANALOGY

The latest investigation that culminated in a judicially ordered search of Omar’s home on October 12, 2026, reportedly encompasses not only the suspect marriage but troubling questions over whether she ran afoul of the law by using a fake name and false birth date to obtain citizenship. A separate investigation is examining her financial transactions.

The Obama-era inquiry did not end because of insufficient evidence. Instead, the Times divulges that it was shelved "because prosecutors concluded that the potential crime, a felony, fell outside a five-year statute of limitations." The newspaper’s story relied on statements by current and former officials with knowledge of the first case.

ILHAN OMAR ISSUES STUNNING ADMISSION WHEN CONFRONTED WITH BROTHER MARRIAGE RUMORS

That decision to mothball any legal action against Omar makes little sense, unless one factors in political favoritism by Obama and his prosecutorial cohorts.

It is true that marriage fraud is a federal felony governed by a five-year statute of limitations under 8 U.S.C. § 1325(c). However, the clock runs from the last overt act of fraud or submission of false documents, not the date of the wedding ceremony itself in 2009.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR ILHAN OMAR? FORMER IMMIGRATION JUDGE BREAKS DOWN LEGAL RISKS AMID FEDERAL PROBES

Taking steps to later obtain a green card would qualify as an overt act, as would document fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1546). So, too, would any act to cover up a sham marriage or efforts to conceal it. Indeed, it would constitute additional crimes such as conspiracy (18 U.S.C. § 371) and obstruction of justice or obstruction of proceedings (18 U.S.C. §§ 1505 and 1512).

Elmi abandoned his quest for a green card and left the U.S. for London sometime in 2011 when disturbing questions reportedly arose over his application. His actions and any misrepresentations associated with Omar might have brought the case within the permissible statute of limitations.

HOMAN SAYS ILHAN OMAR COULD BE STRIPPED OF NATURALIZATION, DEPORTED IF IMMIGRATION FRAUD IS PROVEN

But never mind all of that.

Obama’s DHS and DOJ could have pursued a simpler approach under civil (not criminal) immigration fraud. Orchestrating a scheme to illegally obtain U.S. immigration status or benefits carries severe legal consequences. There is no statute of limitations.

GREGG JARRETT: ILHAN OMAR COULD FACE INDICTMENT, DENATURALIZATION AND DEPORTATION

If the Obama administration had chosen this logical course, it could have led to Omar’s denaturalization and subsequent deportation. The standard of proof is "clear and convincing evidence," much lower than in criminal prosecutions.

It is unclear, but curious, why this legal road was never taken. We only know that authorities under Obama shuttered the case and buried the investigation. Preferential treatment? Political cronyism? It has the unmistakable stench.

REP ILHAN OMAR'S IMMIGRATION HISTORY FACES NEW SCRUTINY AS FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS SUBPOENA RELATIVES

This makes Obama’s social media screed against President Trump even more outlandish. Trump is doing what Obama did, except that Trump’s administration has expanded the Omar inquiry into areas where the former president’s prosecutors refused to go.

They should have gone there.

Obama’s harangue on X accused Trump of selectively targeting Omar without ever disclosing that his own administration investigated her first. That was dishonesty by omission. A mere oversight? Doubtful.

Obama also pronounced as true certain facts about Omar’s age that may not be true at all. He declared with absolute confidence that she was 17 years old when she applied as a minor for derivative citizenship based on her father’s citizenship.

But her age and birth date are still very much in dispute. Her autobiography and other documents undermine Obama’s claim, indicating that Omar may have been an adult of 18 years and legally ineligible for the type of citizenship that she procured. If she or her father made false statements or committed fraud, it would nullify her citizenship and could lead to removal from the U.S.

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This is not an "unsubstantiated theory," as Obama asserts in his social media post.

The former president accuses Trump of "intimidation" and laments that he is deploying "the full weight of the federal government" to bring down "a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president." Spare us the duplicitous pearl-clutching.

Obama expressed no moral outrage when his successor, Joe Biden, targeted his political opponent with criminal indictments. Going back further to his own presidency, Obama’s dirty fingerprints were all over the initial stages of the government’s damaging investigation of Trump in the phony collusion scandal.

Obama seems to think that Americans are simpletons with anterograde amnesia. It resembles contempt.

The New York Times report exposes Obama’s glaring double standard for what it is — a transparently insincere attack based on shallow evidence. This comes as no surprise.

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Obama always seems confident in his righteousness in an irritatingly pious way. Ever the charlatan, he pretends to be holier-than-thou. Sometimes the truth catches up with him.

But don’t expect Obama to change now that his hypocrisy has been revealed. That would require earnest introspection.

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Barack Obama cuestionó el manejo bélico del presidente Donald Trump y los costos del conflicto, que alcanzaron los 47.000 millones de dólares.

Far-left ABC's "The View" host Joy Behar claims President Donald Trump is "jealous" of former President Barack Obama.

The post Watch: ‘The View’ Host Joy Behar Claims Trump Is ‘So Jealous of Obama’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Congress changed the law 10 years ago precisely to give the families a pathway to test their claims, which may or may not prevail in court. 

Congress changed the law 10 years ago precisely to give the families a pathway to test their claims, which may or may not prevail in court. 

The investigation into whether Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., married her brother in an alleged immigration fraud scheme in 2009 began under former President Barack Obama in 2016, Fox News Digital has confirmed.

A U.S. Attorney in Minnesota, appointed by then-President Joe Biden, eventually shut down the probe in 2021, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News Digital.

Now, the issue has been thrust back into the spotlight as part of a new federal investigation into the Somali-born congresswoman, part of which centers on whether she or her father committed immigration fraud on her application to become a U.S. citizen.

REP ILHAN OMAR'S IMMIGRATION HISTORY FACES NEW SCRUTINY AS FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS SUBPOENA RELATIVES

Sources previously told Fox News Digital that Omar's "real name" is Ilhan Nur Said Elmi. In a federal court document, she was called "Ilhan Omar Nur Said Elmi, a/k/a Ilhan Omar."

In 2009, Omar, then a U.S. citizen, legally married a man with that surname, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. The pair officially split in 2017.

The New York Times first reported that Obama's FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) began the probe in the summer of 2016, and that officials "found some evidence that [the marriage] was fraudulent." The Times reported that the investigation concluded when officials decided the potential felony crime was past the statute of limitations.

OMAR’S DELETED TWEET COULD GIVE CLUE ON ALLEGED MARRIAGE TO HER BROTHER

Despite his own administration's investigation into Omar at the time she was running for the Minnesota House, Obama condemned the renewed probe, which included a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) raid on her Washington, D.C. home on Oct. 12. Federal authorities confiscated her passport, personal phone and computer in the raid.

"It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say," Obama wrote in an X post after the raid earlier this month. "But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota."

OBAMA'S LENGTHY REACTION TO OMAR INVESTIGATION TRIGGERS INSTANT BACKLASH: 'SPARE ME'

Obama claimed the Trump administration was targeting Omar because she is a vocal critic of the current president.

"Think about that," Obama said in the post. "The full weight of the federal government is being brought down on a law-abiding elected official because she has dared to criticize the president."

175 DEMOCRATS DEMAND TRUMP ADMIN STOP ILHAN OMAR INVESTIGATION, WARN IT COULD HURT HER RE-ELECTION BID

Omar has frequently called the allegations that she married her brother a conspiracy theory promulgated by the political right, including in a statement to Fox News Digital regarding the new investigation last week.

"Rep. Omar has repeatedly and unequivocally denied this baseless, disgusting conspiracy theory," an Omar spokesperson said. "This is a desperate political smear designed to distract from Trump’s failed presidency and two years of Republican failure in Congress. And it’s disgraceful that the media continues to give this lie oxygen."

The same spokesperson this morning doubled down on the claim that the current investigation is a "political vendetta against one of Trump's most visible critics," and said that the 2016 investigation was "rejected for a lack of evidence," contrary to the New York Times report that it was closed due to the statute of limitations. 

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Fox News Digital reached out to an Obama spokesperson and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Minnesota.

Fox News Digital's Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report.

The New York Times admits the Obama DOJ “found some evidence” Rep. llhan Omar (D-MN) married her brother so he could obtain a green card.

The post Nolte: NY Times Admits Obama DOJ Found Evidence of Ilhan Omar’s Suspected ‘Sham Marriage’ appeared first on Breitbart.

Russia's sanctioned Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is heading to a G20 meeting in the US, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated. Moscow plans to use the trip to argue against sanctions, days after Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv. Ukraine, meanwhile, is still waiting for Washington's sign-off on the air defense missiles it needs.

Ukraine is fighting Russia's air war while its main ally squeezes it too, from capped Starlink links to missing US warnings of incoming ballistic missiles, leaving Kyiv weaker before any talks. A new round of the US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral talks is expected in Abu Dhabi in November.

Moscow's sanctioned minister plans to argue against sanctions

Lavrov will lead the Russian delegation at the G20 foreign ministers' meeting, which the US hosts in Atlanta on 30–31 October. In his speeches, he will denounce “the use of economic ‘weapons’ to fight opponents, including sanctions,” Russia's Foreign Ministry stated. The US Treasury sanctioned Lavrov on 25 February 2022, the day after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The ministry claimed its delegation ran into American red tape over visas. Journalists in Lavrov's press pool still received US visas without movement restrictions, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

The State Department's announcement of the meeting doesn't mention Russia or say whether Lavrov got a sanctions waiver. Republican Congressman Don Bacon told RFE/RL that Russian leaders “should not be welcomed in any of these forums.” “They lead a pariah state,” he said.

Moscow's demands arrive days after its missiles hit Kyiv

Lavrov will also stress “the cornerstone importance of indivisible security” as the basis of multipolarity, the ministry stated. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out neutrality and limits on Ukraine's army.

A day before the trip was announced, Lavrov called the US-Russia diesel deal a purely business arrangement. “There were no strings attached,” he claimed.

Lavrov brings these demands days after Russian ballistic missiles hit a Kyiv university campus and the Southern Bridge, killing a 46-year-old woman, the Kyiv City Prosecutor's Office reported. Kyiv has waited almost a month for US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's signature on Patriot and NASAMS missiles, Zelenskyy wrote.

Moscow keeps collecting from Washington

The visit adds to a run of US moves in Moscow's favor. This month, the US Treasury cleared Russian diesel blocked by sanctions. US President Donald Trump then waived tariffs on buyers of Russian oil. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright also said investors could buy sanctioned shadow-fleet tankers and return them to legal trade. Russia, for its part, kept striking Ukraine's energy sites during the truce Trump announced.

Russian officials are also back in G20 rooms in person. In late August, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov attended a G20 finance meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. It was his first in-person G20 appearance since 2022, and European officials refused to join the group photo with him. The State Department has stated that Russia is welcome at all G20 meetings, and a senior US official said Russia would be invited to the leaders' summit in Miami in December.

Western ministers used to push back at those tables. When Lavrov spoke at the G20 meeting in Johannesburg in February 2025, then-British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said he saw no appetite for peace.

In Atlanta, Obama accuses the White House of selling out Ukrainians

Former US President Barack Obama campaigned in Atlanta on 28 October, two days before Lavrov's meeting there.

“And while we're alienating key allies like Canada, the White House is bending the knee to Vladimir Putin of Russia and selling out Ukrainians who are fighting for their freedom and democracy,” Obama said.

He also likened Trump's self-enrichment in office to “what dictators in other countries do.”

This live blog is now closed.

• Alaska governor orders investigation into Peltola’s Senate campaign

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With days until the midterm elections, a new poll from CNN places Democrats well in the lead in key Senate races in Texas and Michigan, while projecting tighter contests in Kansas and Maine.

In Texas, the poll found 49% of likely voters would back James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, over Republican Ken Paxton, who netted just 43%.

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© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

Several current and former law enforcement officials said an Obama-era investigation found some evidence that Ms. Omar had entered into a sham marriage with a man suspected of being her brother.

© Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

Neither man is on the ballot but Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic former President Barack Obama took prominent roles on the campaign trail on Wednesday, with less than a week to go before congressional races that could shift the balance of power in Washington.

While Trump has been on a weeks-long campaign blitz that has underlined Republican concerns about losing control of Congress for the final two years of his presidency, Obama had kept a relatively low public profile until the past week, during which he has delivered blistering speeches criticizing Trump.

Thirty-five of the 100 Senate seats and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are being contested next Tuesday. Nonpartisan analysts generally favor Democrats’ chances of capturing a majority in the House, with the contest for the Senate seen as very close.

Obama warns American values are at stake

On Wednesday, Obama appeared in Morrow, Georgia, near Atlanta, where he urged voters to support Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, who faces a challenge from Representative Mike Collins, a Republican.

While delivering the standard Democratic critique of Trump for imposing tariffs and going to war in Iran, Obama also said America’s values were on the ballot, as he recalled the vision of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., who is buried in Atlanta.

“There is a moral component to the choices we face right now,” Obama said.

“We are not going to fix the system that’s broken, we’re not going to unrig our economy, so long as we’ve got a culture where anything goes, where people in the highest offices of the land think it’s OK to lie and cheat and bully, if we continue to have a culture where money is deemed the only measure of our worth,” Obama said.

Trump targets Democrats as early voting surges

Trump’s public approval rating has fallen to a near record low, with Americans increasingly sour on the high cost of living and the Iran war, but he remains an animating force in the party and has campaigned hard to increase Republican turnout.

Americans have been voting for weeks, with 40 million ballots already cast, according to the University of Florida’s Election Lab. A total of 45.9 million Americans voted early in the last midterm elections in 2022.

Addressing a rally inside a modest college gymnasium in the Ohio town of Chillicothe, the president appeared with Senator Jon Husted of Ohio as he faces a challenge from Democratic former Senator Sherrod Brown.

Trump attacked Brown for supporting immigration policies the president said had overwhelmed Springfield, Ohio, with Haitian migrants. “The town went to hell,” he said.

Trump spread false claims during the 2024 presidential campaign that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating cats and dogs, allegations local officials repeatedly said were untrue.

Protesters confront Trump at Ohio rally

Enthusiastic crowds have cheered Trump at rallies throughout the campaign, but hundreds of protesters lined Trump’s motorcade route in rural Chillicothe, raising banners that read, “Republican against Trump,” “Grab them by the ballot” and “GOP: Guardians of pedophiles.”

During the rally, protesters interrupted Trump several times, including at least one who shouted about deceased convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

“I threw Jeffrey Epstein the hell out of Mar-a-Lago,” Trump said in response.

Trump and Epstein socialized in the 1990s and early 2000s, but Trump has said they later had a falling out and that he barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Justice Department releases from the Epstein files have included references to Trump, as well as many other prominent figures. The department has cautioned that some materials contain allegations that were unverified or uncorroborated.

Protesters have interrupted Trump at virtually all his recent rallies. He typically accuses them of being paid protesters as they are carted off by security.

In Cleveland on Saturday, Obama poked fun at Trump’s taste in interior decorating, saying, “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” a chain of casual dining restaurants.

Trump defended his White House decor and said Obama left the property deteriorated.

“The White House, I think, is the number one symbol of our country, and we can’t have a White House with broken windows, with broken stone that hasn’t been painted in 30 years,” Trump said in Ohio.

Tight Senate races could decide control of Congress

Democrats will need to pick up seats in traditionally Republican-leaning states such as Ohio, Iowa or Alaska to overcome the current 53-47 Republican majority in the Senate.

The New York Times reported that aides to Mary Peltola, the Senate Democratic nominee in Alaska, worked with the campaign’s lawyers and senior staff at Senate Democrats’ campaign arm to recruit two candidates who are on the ballot and could siphon votes from incumbent Republican US Senator Dan Sullivan.

Representatives for Peltola did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Mary Peltola should resign from the race. I think she should be criminally prosecuted for what she did,” Trump told reporters before departing for Ohio.

In Michigan, where Republican Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed are locked in a tight race for the Senate seat being vacated by Democratic Senator Gary Peters, both campaigns are relying on high-profile allies to energize supporters and boost turnout.

Rogers spent the day campaigning with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas on a four-stop bus tour culminating in Imlay City, a small community northeast of Detroit. El-Sayed, meanwhile, was scheduled to join Peters and fellow Michigan Senator Elissa Slotkin for an evening canvassing rally in Downriver, southwest of Detroit.

• Obama defended his record on The Cheesecake Factory on Wednesday.
• He said he frequented the restaurant as a dad and mocked the GOP backlash to his joke.
• "The president wasn't even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison," Obama said.

Barack Obama wants to set the record straight: he loves The Cheesecake Factory as much as the next dad.

The former president defended his record on the California-based restaurant chain while campaigning for Democrats in Atlanta on Wednesday. At a campaign rally in Cleveland on Saturday, Obama said President Donald Trump's White House renovations had it "looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory."

The joke sparked dayslong backlash from Republicans and the White House, who framed Obama as an elitist out of touch with average Americans. Obama countered by saying he's spent plenty of time at the restaurant chain.

"I am the father of two daughters. Do you think I could have survived their childhood without going to The Cheesecake Factory?" Obama asked the crowd on Wednesday. "I lived at Chuck E. Cheese and California Pizza Kitchen and The Cheesecake Factory. That was my jam for about a decade."

Following Obama's initial comment over the weekend, Trump called him a "lousy president" for comparing the White House to the restaurant. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent ate at a Cheesecake Factory on Monday and said he "would tell the Martha's Vineyard set to give it a try."

Obama, who was campaigning with Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff and gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms, criticized the response to his comment. He said the White House devoted more energy to rebutting his Cheesecake Factory joke than to addressing affordability or allegations of corruption.

"The president wasn't even mad about the Saddam Hussein comparison," he said. "That part didn't bother him, but he was very upset about the Cheesecake Factory. He took great umbrage."

Obama said the White House "mobilized" a response to his joke but "not to inflation," pointing to Bessent's Cheesecake Factory visit: "This is the man who is in charge of the economy, the person who's supposed to be figuring out how to make your life more affordable."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

The Cheesecake Factory did not respond to a request for comment and has not publicly addressed the controversy. The company did, however, score a win on Tuesday, when it reported a third-quarter earnings beat. Its stock price was up over 100% this year as of market close Wednesday.

Cheesecake Factory executives did not mention the controversy on the earnings call.

Former US president comes to Georgia to support Jon Ossoff for US Senate and Keisha Lance Bottoms for governor

Barack Obama, speaking at a Wednesday campaign rally in suburban Atlanta, offered a closing argument for Democrats in the final week of the midterm election campaign.

“These are not serious people,” he said of Donald Trump and the Republican party. “And we’re all paying the price for their lack of seriousness.”

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© Photograph: Erik S Lesser/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Erik S Lesser/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Erik S Lesser/AFP/Getty Images

Former President Obama on Wednesday responded to uproar over a recent campaign trail jab at President Trump’s White House decorations, slamming Republicans for focusing more on the joke than on the economy.  “They mobilized a whole-of-government response to that joke, not to inflation, but to that joke,” Obama said during a campaign rally in Georgia.…

Former President Obama on Wednesday responded to uproar over a recent campaign trail jab at President Trump’s White House decorations, slamming Republicans for focusing more on the joke than on the economy.  “They mobilized a whole-of-government response to that joke, not to inflation, but to that joke,” Obama said during a campaign rally in Georgia.…