From§Each

Page T28From§Eachthe afternoon edition — 17 October 2026

Government that defied a judge over press passes defies another over Omar's phone, calls the case 'strong.'

By LouOne More Question

“Omar fundraising off federal investigation”, 13 October 2026 (Photo via The Hill — the original report)

As it ran on the front

I've got the renewal notice for my car registration in my hand. It came last week, stuck behind the storm door where the mail goes to die, and it says the sticker is good for one year, thirty-one dollars, due the ninth. I was standing on the porch reading it, half annoyed, when it got me thinking about a different word entirely — not a word on this notice, a word from somewhere else. The word is "strong." Homeland Security used it about a week ago, describing its own investigation into Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. I wrote that down because it struck me as an odd word for a government to use about itself while the facts are still coming in.

Here's what else came in, in order, because I keep a little stack of these things on the workbench and I like to lay them out straight. On the twelfth, agents went into the congresswoman's home in Washington. The matter concerns an immigration form, filled out when she was a child. On the thirteenth, the President held a rally in Ohio, and the crowd there chanted "deport." The congresswoman's campaign sent out a fundraising email that same week calling the investigation "baseless" and "partisan." On the fourteenth, the inquiry reached her phone and her computer, and her relatives got subpoenas. And according to a report that ran today, agents also pulled a DNA sample out of her trash. That's a lot of paperwork to generate off one childhood form, is all I'm saying.…

…(cont) Today is the part I keep circling back to, because today is when her attorneys filed something accusing the Department of Justice of violating a federal judge's order. They're asking for her property back — the phone, the computer — and they want every recording of the search preserved, audio and video both, which is the kind of request you make when you're worried about what happens to a recording nobody's watching.

And I'll tell you why that stopped me in the garage this afternoon, fan belt in one hand, because I've seen this exact shape before, and it had nothing to do with Congresswoman Omar. Back in September — the twenty-fourth, I had it on the back of an envelope — a federal judge named Timothy Kelly, appointed by this same president, ordered the White House to immediately restore press passes it had pulled from three news organizations. "Immediately" was Kelly's word, not mine. That same Thursday morning, reporters from those outlets were turned away at the gate anyway. Not next week. Not after an appeal got filed. The same morning the order came down, the gate stayed shut.

I keep a fan belt in the toolbox that I've been meaning to put on for two years, because the car still starts most mornings without it. A belt that mostly holds isn't holding. A case where the government's own lawyers get accused, in writing, of ignoring a judge — and not for the first time this year — is being described by somebody who's hoping you don't check under the hood.

“They call it "strong" the same week their own lawyers get caught ignoring a judge's order — that's not confidence, that's a plea for credit before the homework's graded. We already watched this exact move in September, when this same administration blew off a judge's order restoring press passes the very morning it landed. Omar's a sitting congresswoman; today it's her phone and her trash, and the courts just found out their signature is a suggestion.”
Sal
“Homeland Security says the case is strong, and a department is allowed to have confidence in its own work — did I say confidence, I mean the legal merits, obviously the legal merits. And this whole business about a judge's order, that was a completely separate matter, a different case file, a — okay, it's the same judge, Timothy Kelly, twice now, but these things take time to coordinate across agencies, you can't expect everybody to read an order the second it's signed.”
Chip

Earlier in this story

The receipts

Omar fundraising off federal investigation DHS agents raided a sitting congresswoman's home Monday
The Hillmainstream§

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) released a fundraising email focused on the federal investigation for which agents raided her home on Monday. “Stand with Ilhan Omar,”

· Violating Federal Judge's Order, Trump White House Denies Access to Politico, MS NOW, CNN Reporters from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026

· Trump-Appointed Judge Orders President to Restore White House Access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026

This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.