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A deepening federal investigation into Minnesota Democratic Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has sent shockwaves through U.S. political circles, with new details emerging about subpoenas, evidence gathering, and the Trump administration’s aggressive broader agenda targeting immigration and naturalization. The Minnesota Star Tribune first reported Thursday that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), now led by Attorney General Todd Blanche, a former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump, has issued subpoenas to several of Omar’s immediate relatives — excluding her husband and daughter — as part of an ongoing inquiry into alleged immigration fraud.

The development comes just days after federal agents with Homeland Security Investigations carried out a pre-dawn raid at Omar’s Washington D.C. residence this Monday, a search that has now been confirmed resulted in the seizure of her cell phone, personal laptop and all other electronic devices held at the home.

Omar, a Somali-born refugee who arrived in the United States as a child in 1995 and made history as the first hijab-wearing Muslim member of Congress, has been one of Donald Trump’s most persistent political targets since her election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. With just weeks remaining until her November 3 re-election bid, the investigation has raised urgent questions about political interference in law enforcement.

The core of the DOJ’s current inquiry centers on the circumstances of Omar’s naturalization: she obtained U.S. citizenship at age 17 through her late father, who had already completed his own naturalization process. Investigators are now probing whether Omar was actually 18 at the time of her naturalization, a distinction that would have required her to submit a separate citizenship application independent of her father’s. For years, Trump has repeatedly called for investigations into Omar’s citizenship status, even going so far as to baselessly claim she married her own brother to fraudulently secure immigration status. Omar has repeatedly and forcefully denied all such allegations. Despite this, both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have spent the past year publicly demanding the inquiry move forward, with Trump infamously leading crowds at his political rallies in chants of “send her back” targeting the congresswoman.

On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing anonymous senior U.S. officials, that the current administration is actively building a legal case to revoke Omar’s U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her. The reported plan is part of a much broader push by the Trump administration to strip citizenship from more people than any modern U.S. administration. Just last week, the DOJ announced an unprecedented move to initiate citizenship revocation proceedings for 40 people. Historically, such actions have been extremely rare, with most presidential administrations targeting fewer than five individuals per term. This crackdown aligns with Trump’s long-stated goal to deport as many as one million people annually from the U.S., regardless of whether their immigration status was obtained through legal or irregular pathways.

While Omar has been one of the most vocal critics of Trump’s policy agenda, she is far from the highest-profile opponent of the administration within Congress. Even many Republican lawmakers have pushed back on the investigation, arguing it is a deliberate distraction from pressing domestic issues that matter most to American voters. Marjorie Taylor-Greene, a former Republican House member who has become a prominent critic of Trump, posted publicly on social media platform X Wednesday saying she shares the view held by many of Omar’s supporters that the probe is a political distraction.

“Me and Ilhan Omar are far apart policy wise. I’m pro life, she’s pro abortion. I’m pro 2A, she’s pro gun control. And on and on,” Greene wrote. “But can someone tell me how pretending to get ready to deport Ilhan Omar is going to bring gas down under $2, make health insurance freaking affordable, make a family’s weekly grocery bill make sense, and stop sending our beloved military off to fight for another fucking foreign war??? People are so sick and tired of the bullshit.”

This is not the first time Omar has faced federal scrutiny: The New York Times has confirmed that during Democratic President Joe Biden’s prior administration, federal officials launched an investigation into Omar’s personal financial dealings back in 2022. That inquiry ultimately stalled and was closed after investigators failed to turn up sufficient evidence to support any charges.

New York City’s top financial official has backed away from a high-profile campaign pledge to purchase Israeli government bonds, reversing course over mounting concerns about economic instability and credit risk in the region.

Mark Levine, a Democratic incumbent who made the purchase of Israeli bonds a central plank of his successful 2025 election campaign, confirmed his decision to The New York Times in recent comments, emphasizing that his choice is rooted purely in fiscal prudence rather than political opposition to Israeli policy.

“I always said this would be based on financial considerations only, not politics — that’s still my position,” Levine stated. “But as of now, we feel that because of some technical challenges, and because of financial considerations, this is not an investment that we can make right now.”

The debate over whether New York City should invest pension fund assets in Israeli bonds first erupted into public view in 2023, when then-Comptroller Brad Lander chose not to reinvest in new Israeli bonds after the city’s existing holdings matured. At that time, the city’s pension fund held roughly $39 million in Israeli bonds, which delivered consistent annual returns of approximately five percent. Lander’s decision stopped short of full divestment, however, as the city did not liquidate its existing positions.

When Levine launched his campaign for comptroller last year, he positioned himself as an avowed supporter of Israel and made the purchase of new Israeli bonds a key campaign promise, setting up an immediate ideological and policy clash with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who has publicly called for full divestment from Israel over its military conduct in the Gaza Strip. Notably, the mayor lacks the legal authority to override the comptroller’s independent decisions on pension fund bond purchases, meaning Levine’s final call stands regardless of city hall’s position.

Levine, who speaks Hebrew and has longstanding personal ties to Israel, has not shied away from commenting on Israeli domestic politics. In his recent comments, he shared that he feels a deep personal connection to the country but also expressed heartbreak over its current political climate, echoing widespread international criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government.

Levine’s decision comes against a backdrop of shifting credit ratings for Israeli sovereign debt. In 2024, credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded Israeli bonds, labeling the asset an “increasingly risky investment.” While Moody’s has since revised its overall outlook for Israel upward, the technical credit rating of Israeli bonds still remains below the level it held before the October 7, 2023 attacks.

A U.S. federal judge has dealt a legal blow to the Trump administration’s crackdown on groups cooperating with the International Criminal Court (ICC), issuing a preliminary injunction this week that shields two American human rights organizations from potential civil or criminal liability for their work supporting ICC investigations.

Judge Jesse Furman of the Southern District of New York ruled that the two groups, Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) and the Taxpayer Alliance Against Genocide (TAAG), had demonstrated a strong likelihood of proving that the Trump administration’s executive order violated their First Amendment rights to free speech. In his ruling, Furman emphasized that any interruption to First Amendment freedoms, even for a short period, constitutes irreversible harm to constitutional protections. The judge’s order specifically blocks any punitive measures targeting the two groups that are rooted in their protected speech activities.

The legal challenge was launched in July, shortly after U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio published an op-ed declaring the administration’s intent to “dismantle the ICC brick by brick.” A separate, ongoing lawsuit was filed a month later by four additional U.S. human rights groups, which argue that Trump’s sanctions on the ICC are rooted in a manufactured national emergency with no factual basis.

DAWN, which was founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi, a former Middle East Eye columnist murdered in 2018, confirmed this week that it will continue its work after the court’s ruling. The organization has submitted multiple filings to the ICC that document alleged atrocity crimes committed by Israeli officials in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, as well as the complicity of U.S. officials in these alleged crimes. DAWN’s legal team explained that the group’s work is not limited to supporting ICC investigations, but also aims to build broad public pressure to hold state actors accountable to international law.

The court ruling does not, however, reverse the Trump administration’s broader sanctions regime targeting the ICC itself. That regime was established 18 months into Trump’s presidency via Executive Order 14203, which authorized the imposition of sanctions on any foreign individual that supports ICC investigations into U.S. or Israeli nationals suspected of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. The order also criminalized providing or receiving any “service” connected to sanctioned individuals or entities connected to the ICC. The administration justified these measures by claiming the ICC’s investigations represent a national emergency, arguing the court has no jurisdiction over crimes committed by U.S. or Israeli citizens during armed conflict.

The U.S. has a long history of ambivalence toward the ICC: while it participated in the court’s founding negotiations and signed the Rome Statute in 2000 under President Bill Clinton, it never sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification, over longstanding fears that U.S. military personnel and officials could face prosecution for alleged war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Trump has been openly explicit that his administration’s actions are specifically intended to punish the ICC for its investigations targeting Israel. To date, the administration has used Executive Order 14203 to sanction ICC prosecutors and judges, three leading Palestinian human rights groups (al-Haq, al-Mezan, and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights), and United Nations special rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who investigates human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.

When DAWN and TAAG first filed their lawsuit, their legal team argued that the executive order’s vague definition of “service” gave the government broad power to penalize almost any activity that benefits sanctioned parties. The groups warned they could face prosecution for routine activities such as filing legal briefs with the ICC, sharing evidence, or even collaborating with Palestinian human rights groups or Albanese. Prior to the court ruling, the threat of legal action had already forced many organizations to self-censor, halt work related to the ICC and cut professional ties with sanctioned individuals and groups. Joe Pace, the attorney representing DAWN and TAAG, described the Trump administration’s actions as a “textbook infringement on the First Amendment,” noting that the Constitution does not allow the government to dictate what topics American citizens can discuss with domestic or foreign parties.

A senior UK Labour politician has sparked fresh debate over press freedom and police conduct after tabling a parliamentary motion to condemn the controversial arrest of five journalists covering a pro-Palestinian protest in Leicester. The incident, which unfolded on October 8 outside the offices of UAV Tactical Systems — a local subsidiary of Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems — has drawn sharp criticism from political figures and media unions over allegations of excessive police force.

The five detained media workers included two reporters from the Leicester Gazette and two freelance journalists accredited by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). According to the reporters’ accounts, they were taken into detention under Section 13 of the UK’s Terrorism Act despite explicitly showing official press credentials to multiple police officers at the scene. After holding the journalists for three hours and collecting their personal data, officers ultimately de-arrested the group without filing any charges.

John McDonnell, the veteran Labour politician behind the motion, formally labeled the arrests as unjustified police overreach in his Early Day Motion, tabled before UK Parliament last Thursday. He argued the incident poses a serious threat to the fundamental right of press freedom that underpins democratic society. Speaking to Middle East Eye, McDonnell emphasized that intimidating or detaining journalists simply for carrying out their professional work constitutes a clear violation of basic human rights, adding that such repressive actions have no place in a free democracy and cannot be accepted.

The National Union of Journalists has also joined the push for accountability over the incident. NUJ General Secretary Laura Davison confirmed the union has raised formal concerns with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, echoing McDonnell’s criticism of excessive police action. Davison noted that following the UK government’s recent official ban on the protest group Palestine Action, the union has repeatedly stressed that journalistic coverage of the group — including taking photos or video of protest placards — does not amount to criminal support for the organization.

In an official response to requests for comment, a spokesperson for Leicestershire Police defended the law enforcement action, explaining that the decision to detain all people at the protest site — including the journalists — was made to support a thorough investigation amid chaotic on-scene conditions and a large crowd. The spokesperson clarified that once officers interviewed the detained individuals, collected their details and confirmed no offenses had been committed, the journalists were immediately de-arrested and were never moved to police custody. Overall, police confirmed that 35 people were detained under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act during the protest, with just one individual facing additional arrest on suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense. All 35 detained people have since been released on conditional bail.

The incident comes amid growing tensions across the UK over protest policing, press freedom, and restrictions on pro-Palestinian advocacy following the government’s recent ban on Palestine Action, raising new questions about how law enforcement balances public order with protections for media and civil liberties.

A controversy has erupted over artistic expression and political speech in Wales after the national poet was excluded from the opening ceremony of the Senedd, the country’s devolved parliament, which was presided over by King Charles III, when officials rejected her work for referencing pressing global and domestic political issues.

Hanan Issa, a Welsh-Iraqi writer who holds the title of Wales’s national poet, was commissioned to compose and perform an original poem for Thursday’s official opening in Cardiff. But just one day before the event, Issa revealed that her original submission had been turned down explicitly on the basis that its political content made it unsuitable for the occasion.

Issa’s original poem, titled *To Grow*, was crafted to blend English and Welsh language, framing Wales as a community garden and elected lawmakers as the garden’s caretakers—an extended metaphor to explore the responsibilities of governance. Rejecting calls to produce a generic, apolitical piece focused only on natural scenery, Issa wove in references to urgent ongoing issues, most notably a passage calling out violence against civilian children in Gaza. The poem also touched on contentious domestic policy debates around cuts to transgender healthcare and the rising threat of far-right fascism across Europe.

When told the direct political references were unacceptable, Issa revised the poem, softening the language to be more abstract and replacing the explicit reference to “Gazan children” with the coded phrase “watermelon children”—a widely recognized symbolic reference to Palestinians, as the watermelon’s green, white, black and red stripes match the colors of the Palestinian flag. Even this toned-down second version was rejected by Senedd organizers.

Following the second rejection, Issa announced she would boycott the entire ceremony, saying she was no longer welcome to participate. In an interview with BBC Radio Wales Breakfast, she explained her reasoning for including political content: the original commission brief only requested a poem celebrating elected representatives and their commitment to the Welsh public, with no explicit rule barring engagement with current issues. “It felt like a disservice to write something that was quite surface level, when so many pressing issues are affecting the lives of people in Wales today,” she said. Issa added that she found the rejection deeply concerning: the Senedd is Wales’s legislative body, where political debate is the core function, so barring political commentary from a national poet’s contribution sends a worrying message about open discourse in Welsh democracy.

In a brief statement responding to the controversy, the Senedd Commission, the governing body that oversees parliamentary operations, only said that “after a development process, we concluded that the poem was not the right fit for this occasion.”

Literature Wales, the organization that supports literary work and the national poet role, acknowledged the Senedd Commission’s final decision while expressing regret over the outcome. “The role of the national poet is to inspire reflection, conversation and positive change,” the group said in a statement. “We are disappointed that this formal celebration of Welsh democracy will not include a literary contribution.”

The incident has reignited conversations across the United Kingdom about the limits of free expression in institutional public events, particularly when it comes to commentary on the ongoing Israel-Gaza conflict, which has become one of the most divisive global political issues in recent years.

A long-simmering dispute over the intersection of legal professional ethics and Middle East political activism has taken a new turn, after the United Kingdom’s independent regulator for barristers ruled it will not open a formal investigation into three prominent senior barristers who hold patron positions with UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI).

The case stems from a joint complaint filed earlier this year by two legal advocacy organizations—the London-based Public Interest Law Centre (PILC) and the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC)—acting on behalf of multiple charities and pro-Palestine campaign groups. The complaint targeted three high-profile legal figures: Lord David Pannick KC, Lord Anthony Grabiner KC, and Stephen Hockman KC, arguing that their formal association with UKLFI lent unearned professional legitimacy to the group’s aggressive legal campaigns targeting Palestine solidarity activists.

UKLFI, founded in 2011 as a limited guarantee company with an affiliated registered charitable trust, defines its core mission as countering what it frames as the delegitimization of Israel and opposing the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A core component of the group’s work is sending legal warning letters and formal complaints to individuals and organizations hosting pro-Palestine events or activism that UKLFI deems antisemitic or problematic. The names of the three barristers who are UKLFI patrons appear prominently on the header and footer of these legal communications.

Internal documents obtained by Middle East Eye confirm that the Bar Standards Board (BSB), the body tasked with regulating barrister conduct in England and Wales, has closed the complaint without opening an investigation, citing what it calls insufficient evidence of professional misconduct. In its official outcome notification to the complaining legal groups, the BSB acknowledged that the three barristers are formally named as patrons of UKLFI, but ruled that their association does not violate the BSB Handbook of professional conduct.

“Whilst the Barrister is a named Patron on the official letterhead for UKLFI, there is no evidence that the Barrister is the author of the letters sent out on behalf of UKLFI,” the BSB’s decision explained, adding that it is standard practice for non-profit organizations to highlight the professional standing of their official patrons. A BSB spokesperson declined to comment further on the specific case when contacted by Middle East Eye, in line with its policy on individual complaints.

The ruling has been met with immediate pushback from PILC and ELSC, which have called the regulator’s conclusion unconvincing and pledged to formally challenge the decision through the BSB’s appeal process. The advocacy groups argue that the well-documented professional prestige of the three barristers is intentionally leveraged by UKLFI as a tool of “lawfare” designed to intimidate and deter peaceful, fully lawful pro-Palestine activism and protected political expression.

“We reiterate our clients’ concerns around the use of distinguished barristers’ names and professional status on UKLFI correspondence, which lends authority to legal threats and contributes to the suppression of lawful Palestine solidarity activity,” the groups said in a joint statement. “Campaigners deserve to trust that legal regulators will adequately scrutinise harmful deployments of the law; we will persist in our efforts to ensure accountability for our clients.”

Under BSB rules, an appeal of a closed complaint can be granted if new evidence emerges, a procedural error is identified, or the original ruling is found to be materially incorrect. PILC and ELSC say they already have sufficient grounds to launch an appeal and are currently compiling additional evidence to submit to the regulator in support of their challenge.

The ELSC tracks efforts to restrict pro-Palestine activism across the United Kingdom in its Britain Index of Repression database, where UKLFI is listed 128 times. The advocacy group says the cumulative impact of UKLFI’s repeated legal threats has created a widespread “chilling environment” that pushes even fully lawful organizations and individual activists to cancel or alter pro-Palestine events out of fear of costly and time-consuming legal action.

This is not the first complaint over UKLFI’s tactics filed by the two legal groups. Last year, PILC and ELSC submitted a separate complaint to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) against Caroline Turner, a serving director of UKLFI. That complaint accuses Turner of violating the SRA’s professional principles and code of conduct, including through the use of Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs)—a tactic defined as baseless legal threats used to silence critics and deter free expression on matters of public interest.

Per documentation compiled by the complaining groups, between January 2022 and May 2025, UKLFI has sent at least eight formal threatening letters to individuals and organizations engaged in Palestine solidarity work. Recipients who shared the correspondence with complainants say the letters follow a clear pattern of “vexatious and legally baseless” messaging targeted at silencing grassroots campaigners, academic researchers, and civil society groups working on Palestine-related issues.

Months after the Trump administration’s Board of Peace awarded its first construction contract for a controversial international stabilization force base in Gaza, the project remains stuck on the drawing board, as Israeli authorities have refused to grant access for contractors to enter the besieged enclave, British newspaper The Guardian has reported.

The initiative, launched after the 10 October 2025 ceasefire agreement that was billed by former U.S. President Donald Trump as a step to end Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, awarded the contract to U.S. construction firm Arkel International back in August. The company’s mandate was to build a fortified 10,000-square-meter temporary outpost fitted with earthen defensive barriers, designed to accommodate rotating deployments of 150 troops drawn from a 500-strong contingent sourced from Morocco and Kosovo. These troops were positioned as the vanguard of an international stabilization force assembled exclusively from countries deemed friendly to Israel, a plan that has sparked fierce international and domestic backlash.

Two months have passed since the contract was awarded, and no progress has been made. A source familiar with the inner workings of the project told The Guardian that Israeli officials have refused to open border crossings to allow the contractor, equipment, and supplies into Gaza. Without Israeli approval, even basic infrastructure and life-support utilities cannot be installed, leaving the entire initiative dead in the water. “There’s no security. There’s no deliveries of construction equipment. You can’t even start putting utilities. You can’t start putting in basic life-support facilities you know because without the ISF (International Stabilization Force) you can’t go in,” the source explained.

The stalled project lays bare who holds ultimate decision-making power over the Board of Peace, an initiative Trump hailed as a landmark step toward ending conflict in the blockaded coastal strip. Despite the ceasefire that established the board, ongoing violence has persisted: since the truce took effect, more than 1,488 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, with at least 5,281 wounded. UN data shows that the violence has claimed the life of nearly one Palestinian child every single day in this post-ceasefire period. To date, Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 74,377 Palestinians and wounded over 175,398, with thousands more still missing and presumed dead under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Thousands of additional deaths have also been attributed to Israel’s ongoing blockade of critical medical aid and basic supplies into the enclave.

The plan to deploy Moroccan and Kosovar troops to Gaza has already stirred intense controversy in both countries. Civil society organizations and academic communities in both nations have widely condemned the deployment, arguing that it amounts to aiding and abetting Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.

The Israeli government’s current leadership has openly pushed for policies that amount to ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s indigenous Palestinian population, with the goal of replacing existing Palestinian communities with exclusive Jewish settlements. Senior Israeli cabinet members, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, have publicly advocated for policies designed to make daily life so unbearable for Palestinians that they have no option but to flee Gaza entirely.

This reporting was originally published by Middle East Eye, a media outlet that provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.