News Outlets, The New York Times and Judicial Watch Ask Judge to Unseal Search Warrant for Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. Home
A coalition of 14 news organizations, The New York Times and the conservative group Judicial Watch have each asked a federal judge in Washington to make public the sealed search warrant records behind Monday’s federal search of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home.
The three separate filings, made Thursday, Oct. 15, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, were all assigned to Chief Judge James E. Boasberg. In the press coalition’s case and The Times’s case, Boasberg issued identical minute orders the same day directing the government to “file any response” by Oct. 22. No order had been entered on the Judicial Watch docket as of Friday morning.
THE OCT. 12 SEARCH WARRANT
Homeland Security Investigations agents searched the Minnesota Democrat’s home on the morning of Oct. 12. The Justice Department confirmed that HSI executed a judicially authorized search warrant as “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” according to Judicial Watch’s filing announcement and The Times’s court papers.
Fox News, which first reported the search, cited a source familiar with the probe as saying it is focused on immigration paperwork filled out by Omar’s father when she came to the United States from Somalia as a child, CNBC reported. NBC News, citing two people familiar with the investigation, reported that agents seized Omar’s phone and that the possible charges cited by officials included conspiracy and making false statements in immigration paperwork.
Omar has not been charged with a crime, CNBC reported. In a statement posted on X, she called the search “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement” and said, “I will not be silenced.”
President Donald Trump told reporters that day, “I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the DOJ,” according to NBC News. Vice President JD Vance told Fox News Digital the administration would “let the investigation unfold,” adding that if wrongdoing is uncovered, “there will be legal proceedings to follow that.”
WHAT THE PRESS COALITION WANTS
The 14 news organizations, represented by the law firm Ballard Spahr, include ABC News, The Associated Press, Axios, Bloomberg News, Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, KARE 11, NBCUniversal News Group, Politico, Reuters, USA Today, The Washington Sun, The Washington Post and WUSA9.
Their application, filed under the court’s Local Criminal Rule 57.6, seeks the warrant and all attachments, the warrant application, all probable cause affidavits, any motion and order sealing the records, any warrant return, and any other related filings.
“Given the enormous public interest in and historic significance of a search warrant executed at the home of a sitting member of Congress, any potential interest in their continued secrecy is clearly outweighed,” the coalition’s memorandum says. It argues that warrant records are presumptively public once a search has been carried out, quoting a 2008 ruling from the same court that “the routine practice is to make warrant materials publicly available after a search has been executed and a return is available.” The filing also points to the 2022 release of redacted records from the FBI’s search of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and says only “narrowly limited redactions” should be allowed.
THE NEW YORK TIMES FILING
The Times filed its own motion to intervene and application for access. Its memorandum says the paper could not locate a docket for the warrant proceedings and that “the public remains in the dark about the judicial process that culminated in the historic raid on Rep. Omar’s home.”
Citing its own reporting, The Times says prosecutors applied for the warrant more than a week before the search and that it was not signed until constitutional questions tied to Omar’s status as a member of Congress, including the Speech or Debate Clause, were resolved. The filing also notes that the search came weeks before the November midterm elections and cites the Justice Department’s policy against timing investigative steps to affect an election.
JUDICIAL WATCH JOINS THE REQUEST
Judicial Watch filed a separate motion to intervene and unseal. It seeks the warrant, its application, all supporting affidavits and attachments, any return and inventory, the docket sheet, and related briefs, orders, opinions and transcripts, “subject only to any specifically justified, limited redactions.”
“The public has a right to know about what potential crimes spurred the federal government to conduct a search of Ilhan Omar’s home,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a statement.
The group noted that it filed an ethics complaint against Omar with the Office of Congressional Ethics in 2019 and that, in 2022, it won the release of a heavily redacted affidavit used to obtain the Mar-a-Lago search warrant.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The government’s responses to the press coalition and The Times are due Oct. 22. The filings ask Boasberg to order the records released promptly, with any redactions limited to what the court finds necessary. No government response had been filed on any of the three dockets as of Friday morning.
Sources: CourtListener dockets, D.D.C., In re Application of Fourteen Press Organizations, No. 1:26-mc-00144: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74969880/in-re-application-of-fourteen-press-organizations-for-access-to-sealed/ | In re Application of The New York Times Company, No. 1:26-mc-00145: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74969873/in-re-application-of-the-new-york-times-company-in-the-matter-of-rep-ilhan/ | Judicial Watch motion, No. 1:26-mc-00147: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/74972777/in-re-in-the-matter-of-the-search-warrant-of-ilhan-omars-washington-dc/ | Press coalition memorandum (Oct. 15, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.297666/gov.uscourts.dcd.297666.1.1.pdf | The New York Times memorandum (Oct. 15, 2026): https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.297668/gov.uscourts.dcd.297668.1.1.pdf | Judicial Watch statement (Oct. 15, 2026): https://www.judicialwatch.org/moves-unseal-search-warrant-records-for-search-representative-ilhan-omars-dc-home/ | Fox News Digital: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/omar-raid-draws-ominous-warning-vance-blasts-progressive-reps-rage-toward-america | NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/doj-issues-subpoenas-probe-rep-ilhan-omars-immigration-status-family-m-rcna603444 | CNBC: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/12/ilhan-omar-home-raided-dhs-immigration-investigation.html
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