EXCLUSIVE: TYLER, Texas — Vice President JD Vance told Fox News Digital on Tuesday that the Trump administration has no plans to “butt in” on a Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., after the raid on her Washington, D.C., home the day prior.
Vance, however, insisted that the law will be enforced if immigration fraud is uncovered.
“We don’t want to be like the Biden administration. We never want to be like that — where they would allow the law to go after their political opponents,” the vice president said in an exclusive interview following a midterm campaign rally in the Lone Star State on Tuesday.
“We really want to let the law, the facts drive this,” he continued. “And if justice requires something else be done, then, of course, we’ll take a step when we have to.”
Omar’s Washington, D.C., home was subject to a predawn raid on Monday conducted by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the principal investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as first reported by Fox News Digital.
Conservatives repeatedly accused then-President Joe Biden’s DOJ of politically persecuting President Donald Trump and his allies after his first term in office ended.
Most notably for critics, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was infamously raised by the FBI as part of an investigation into alleged mishandling of classified documents. That case was closed when Trump again won the presidency in 2024.
“In the Trump administration, unlike the previous administration, we let the facts and the law drive this stuff — so the president and I really don’t butt ourselves in the DOJ investigations,” Vance said. “We’re not trying to micromanage this. We’re not trying to tell [Attorney General] Todd Blanche to do one thing or another. We try to let the facts drive this thing.”
“So we’re gonna let the investigation unfold,” he went on before warning: “If, of course, criminal wrongdoing is discovered or potentially fraudulent immigration is uncovered, then obviously there will be legal proceedings to follow that.”
While an investigation into potential immigration fraud related to a sitting member of Congress is unprecedented, Vance reiterated that authorities will go where the facts take them — no matter the circumstances of the case.
“I think we have to let the facts and the law drive this, right? So I don’t think you can say because politics might be difficult or politics might be easy, you can’t follow the law. You have to actually enforce the law as it exists,” he said.
Additionally, the vice president slammed Omar for what he views as a negative attitude towards the United States despite it being the country where her family fled to escape civil war in Somalia in 1991.
“And to the question of it being unprecedented, I mean, what I’d say is that Ilhan Omar herself is a very unprecedented person,” he said.
“We have very rarely had a person in Congress who seems to have such disdain and such rage at the country that gave her a better life,” Vance said. “Now, that’s not a crime.”
“But we’re going to see whether she did commit a crime. And if she did, we’re obviously going to follow the law,” he reiterated.
Vance made the comments after rallying on behalf of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton at the Tyler Pounds Regional Airport in Tyler, Texas, a city about 100 miles east of Dallas.
Paxton is running in a neck-and-neck race with Democratic state Rep. James Talarico just three weeks before Election Day, as Republicans fight desperately to hold control of Congress.
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Omar responded to the raid on social media Monday afternoon, both from her personal and government X accounts.
“I’m ok,” Omar wrote on her own X account hours after the search. “Make no mistake: this is an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
“For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns,” she continued. “This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation. I will not be silenced.”
TRUMP RALLY CROWD CHANTS ‘DEPORT’ AS PRESIDENT RIPS ILHAN OMAR AFTER FEDERAL RAID
In a post from her official government X account from just after 1:30 p.m., Omar elaborated further.
“This raid by Trump’s DHS is an outrageous abuse of power and an unprecedented escalation in the weaponization of federal law enforcement to target political enemies. For a decade, Donald Trump has relentlessly targeted Congresswoman Ilhan Omar with inflammatory rhetoric, repeatedly putting a target on her back,” she said.
“Now, those attacks have escalated to a pointless federal raid. The Congresswoman has done nothing wrong. No president should be able to use the power of the federal government to intimidate his political enemies.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Omar’s office for comment, but did not hear back before publication.
