Boasberg Set to Rule on Omar Search Warrant After Trump Attacks

Chief Judge James Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will determine whether the search warrant used to raid the home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., stays sealed. The ruling responds to a consolidated request from The New York Times and 14 other press organizations, alongside a separate petition from the conservative group Judicial Watch. Boasberg has already ordered the Justice Department to defend its position by Oct. 22, though he extended that deadline after the agency asked to wait until the warrant was fully executed.

The dispute arises amid two federal investigations involving the Minnesota Democrat. One inquiry examines discrepancies between financial disclosures filed a year apart. The other investigates allegations that Omar’s father committed fraud on immigration paperwork when he applied for citizenship in 2000. Prosecutors are looking into whether he misstated Omar’s age on the documents, which could have allowed her to gain citizenship as a minor after arriving in the United States from Somalia in 1995 at age 12.

President Donald Trump, who appointed the judge during the Obama administration, has frequently clashed with Boasberg. In March 2025, after the judge temporarily blocked deportation flights for alleged Venezuelan gang members, Trump labeled him a "Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge, a troublemaker and agitator" and called for his impeachment. Following the Oct. 12 raid on Omar’s Washington, D.C., home, Trump said the congresswoman should be "put in jail." He has also accused her of immigration fraud, alleging she married her brother, a reference to her first husband, Ahmed Nur Said Elmi.

The search was conducted by Homeland Security Investigations and the FBI under a warrant issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh. It took place weeks before the midterm elections, during a period when alleged fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs became a major political issue. Within days of the raid, three groups filed requests to unseal the warrant. The Justice Department argued that disclosure could compromise the integrity of the investigation, while the media groups contend that the physical search is complete and sensitive material should be redacted rather than withheld entirely.

In her filing, Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s colleague on the D.C. Circuit, Judge Florence Pan, wrote that the request to unseal now "sounds rash because it is rash." She urged the court to reject the motion without prejudice so it could be renewed after the warrant is fully executed and a charging decision is made public. The filing suggests the department is still executing the warrant, with other details and records remaining redacted.

Omar is also engaged in a separate dispute with the Justice Department. Her attorneys have demanded the return of property taken from her home, arguing that agents violated protections for her congressional work. They further allege that agents did not provide her with a copy of the warrant and prevented her from contacting her lawyers during the search. Boasberg’s current case adds to a list of rulings that have drawn criticism from the president and his allies.

In June 2025, Boasberg ordered federal agencies to preserve Signal messages exchanged by senior officials regarding U.S. military strikes in Yemen, classifying them as potential federal records. During the Biden administration’s Arctic Frost investigation, he signed nondisclosure orders that barred phone carriers from informing Republican lawmakers about subpoenas for their records. He also sentenced former FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith to 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service for altering an email used in a FISA application. Boasberg, who once served on the FISA Court, stated that the alteration undermined the court’s integrity but was a misguided mistake that gave Clinesmith no personal benefit.