Federal Agents Search Rep. Omar's House

The NBA on ESPN is happening now and we're here from all of it. From the superstar moves to the next gym revolution. Let's get who we are boys. We don't just love it, we love it. Because the NBA is a world of its own. So from the biggest names to the biggest moments, ESPN is where you call home. Open the week begins October 21st. It's Tuesday, October 13th. And how's this for an October surprise? We start here. Federal agents carry out an early morning search at the residents of a sitting congresswoman. When we got there, the street was blocked off. There was a police vehicle at one end of the street, a police vehicle at the other end of the street. What we know about the criminal investigation the DOJ just opened into representative Ilhan Omar. The Houthis aren't just attacking Saudi Arabian oil facilities anymore. They're going through security and the next minute you see a huge flash and total panic as people are running. How this new fighting could impact the Iran War and your wallet. And is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the 20th century about to be solved? I think it's a really good change. The record of the electorate that was sold there in 1937 by a million. We'll take you to a remote island in the Pacific for day one of a historic expedition. From ABC News, this is Start Here. I'm Mike Tabaski. Morning, everyone. Brad is out for today, so I'm filling in. As of today, there are 21 days left until the midterm elections. As you'd expect, candidates are out on the campaign trail, making their final pitches to voters. When it hits October, it's basically peddled to the metal for these guys. But now Ilhan Omar, the sitting member of Congress who's up for reelection in just a few weeks, isn't just thinking about the midterms. That's because yesterday she found herself at the center of a criminal investigation by the Department of Justice. They tried to intimidate her. They tried to intimidate us. They tried to intimidate Minneapolis and the rest of the country. They tried to make an example out of her. Omar, you may remember, was elected to the House of Representatives back in 2018. Part of a blue wave of Democratic candidates who won seats during that year's midterms. What an amazing journey this has been. I stand here before you tonight as your Congresswoman elect with many firsts behind my name. Omar made history as the first Somali-born member of Congress, her family emigrated to the US in the 1990s, fleeing the Somali Civil War. She's lived in the US since she was 12 and became an American citizen in 2000. Once we are in position to have conversations with people, it makes it hard for them to hate us up close. But now sources tell ABC that Omar's immigration status might be exactly what the DOJ is taking aim at. I understand they're looking at it very carefully. I've always found it to be totally crooked personally, but that has nothing to do with me. When we first got there, Mike, the search was already well underway. It had begun in the early hours of the morning Monday. And when we got there, the street was blocked off. They had pulled what looked like an evidence van right up to the airport. And about a dozen or so federal agents were going in and out of the home, some were wearing plastic gloves, which is pretty standard in a search. And they were part of something called Homeland Security Investigations, HSI, which is a subsection of the Department of Homeland Security, federal agents. That conduct investigations for that agency, the Department of Homeland Security. Neighbors we talked to said they heard early in the morning, those federal agents pounding on the Congresswoman's front door. And you heard them banging on the door? It was banging on my door, that's how good my hearing is, even though I was asleep. And when we got there, we could see them taking boxes out of the home. We don't know what was in the boxes. And there's a lot we don't know here. We don't fully know the exact specifics of this investigation. We know there is an ongoing criminal investigation, the Department of Justice has confirmed that, but they haven't said exactly what they're looking into. Sources familiar with the investigation tell ABC News that it relates to Omar's immigration paperwork, but we don't have much more detailed than that. Remember Omar, as you noted, came to the U.S. as a Somali refugee in 1995. She later became a U.S. citizen at the age of 17 in 2000. All of that to say, the details here are scant. And this is extraordinary because it's an ongoing criminal investigation, as you noted, of a sitting member of Congress. And it's an investigation into one of the president's political foes. "We're going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country. Ilan Omar is garbage. She's garbage." And President Trump was asked about this investigation late yesterday, and he denied having any involvement in it. "I think it's a terrible person, but that's really up to the deal, Jay. I have nothing to do." But the reality here is, Mike, that the president has been no friend to Ilhan Omar over the last few years. "I became a freshman who nobody should have actually known. I existed because I wielded no power to having the most death threats of any member of Congress." He is relentlessly attacked her over and over again. "She should be allowed to be a Congresswoman, and I'm sure people are looking at that, and she should be thrown the hell out of our country." And at some point, he has even called for her to be investigated or jailed or deported. "Jay, also, the picture that you paint on Ilhan Omar's block, as you were there, it calls to mind like really hard-boiled, serious criminal investigations like an early morning search these big vans and police vehicles. Can you just put into context for us how unusual it is for a member of Congress to be the subject of a search like this by federal law enforcement?" Well, the timeline is so critical here. As you noted earlier, we are three weeks away from the midterm elections. And the Department of Justice typically has this longstanding unwritten rule that avoids taking any public steps in what could be a politically sensitive investigation within 60 days of an election. And that usually relates to candidates or sitting lawmakers who are running for re-election as Ilhan Omar is. With the DOJ is typically avoided doing in the past, our big public steps involved in those investigations that could even accidentally put a thumb on the scale in a race because it's a very public move and what could be seen as a politically fraud investigation. But the DOJ did not follow that traditional norm here. They searched the Congresswoman's DC home. They say it's part of an ongoing criminal investigation. Again, just three weeks out from election day. We don't know exactly what they were looking for. We don't know the full scope of this investigation. But the fact that they took this step is unusual for the Department of Justice traditionally, although what we've seen from the Trump Department of Justice over the last few years, we're willing us to break with these norms, to break with these traditions. Absolutely. And as you're referencing here, we're not hearing a lot from the Department of Justice about what this investigation really is focused on. What is Ilhan Omar saying about this? And also more broadly, what are we hearing from Democrats? She put out a statement yesterday where she says that all of this in her words is, quote, political intimidation. She calls this investigation a, quote, attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement. And in this statement, which was defiant, she goes on to say, quote, I will not be silenced. We've seen Democrats rally to her side as well. The top Democrats in the House, for example, from Hakeem Jeffries and the two other top Democrats in that chamber issued a joint statement in which they called this search in their words, deeply disturbing, they accused the president as congresswoman Omar did of trying to weaponize the DOJ. And it's interesting here because governor Tim Walls, who's the governor of congresswoman Omar's home state of Minnesota, accused the president of that as well. He said the president was going after political opponents close to an election. And he said, quote, Americans see this for what it is. What we haven't seen yet are any public comments from the Congresswoman. We haven't seen her talk on camera. We haven't seen her give an interview and we're not exactly certain where she is if she's home in Minnesota or if she was in her home in Washington, D.C. when this search occurred. But the reality here is, as you noted earlier, Mike, this is something that she's already been contending with because we've seen administration officials talk over the last few months about the possibility of an investigation into congresswoman Omar. So she's already been dealing with this. You read the things about Elon Omar and about who she married and whether she didn't marry this person or that person. It certainly seems like something fishy is there, but certainly it's ratchet it up to another degree and she's going to have to deal with the intensity of this in the last few weeks before election day. Yeah, and I'm sure we're going to hear more about this as we get closer to election day. J. O'Brien, I know that you're going to continue to track this for us. Thanks so much for explaining it to me. Thanks Mike. Upon Start here, the fight between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis enters a deadly new phase. That's after the break. This show is sponsored by NetSuite. 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That's NetSuite.com/integrate to get your free business guide on how AI is changing every day work. NetSuite.com/integrate, once again, NetSuite.com/integrate. This show is sponsored by Colaguard Plus. Let's start with the fact that it's not very fun. Did you know colon cancer is America's number two cancer-related killer? Poisonous screening for colon cancer is widely recommended for adults ages 45 and up, but despite that, more than 60 million people are not up to date on colorectal cancer screening. That's a problem because the early stages of colorectal cancer often show up with no symptoms. That's why our sponsor is encouraging everyone to mind your behind with Colaguard Plus. It's a prescription-based screening test for adults 45 and older who are at average risk for colorectal cancer, it can detect up to 95% of colon cancers, and it's designed to be easy to use. The test takes about 15 minutes to use at home with no prep or dietary changes. 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It all threatens the stability of an already pretty unstable region, and now President Trump says the U.S. may be about to get involved. Let's bring in ABC's chief foreign correspondent Ian Panell to explain all this, Ian, can we just rewind here? Can you remind us why the Saudis and the Houthis are fighting? Yeah, it's a very good question, because although we've been focused on these latest attacks on the airport in Riyadh, the reality is this has been going on for a long time, but what we've been witnessing right now is an escalation, because you've got this ongoing proxy war, if you like, taking place in neighboring Yemen, also part of the Gulf, but it's the poor part of the Gulf between the Houthi rebels who are backed by Iran and the government of Yemen, which is backed by Saudi Arabia. And the Saudis have been escalating their attacks against the Houthis, who in turn have actually been escalating their retaliatory strikes, but also advancing on the ground. So, moving to key positions on the ground, near the sea, which threatened crucial waterways, and as we've seen over the last week, now moving from just striking Saudi oil facilities and pipelines to now starting to target the King Khaled, an international airport in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, and those strikes escalating to the point whereover the weekend, a cruise missile is seen on CCTV, exploding on the domestic terminal at the airport. You can see the terminal is full of passengers, many of them wearing the white clothes that show that they're going on the hard, the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, and it's absolutely packed, they're going through security, and then next minute you see a huge flash and total panic as people are running. Now, 13 people were killed in the strike when American was killed on the strike on Saturday together with four Saudis and a bunch of other nationalities. And as you say, a total of 20 people killed. So, the reality on Monday was that the airport is closed, that the FAA, the Federal Aviation Authority, is advising US planes flying into or over Saudi to take extra precautions, schools in Riyadh have now switched to online lessons, and I think there had been a sense in Saudi Arabia that the authorities were trying to downplay these strikes by the Houthis, in some sense, is trying to ignore them so there wasn't general alarm or panic. Well, now that's just unavoidable because people are getting sirens going off on their phones, many people have been told to work from home, kids aren't going to school, and you can't fly out. In fact, the US Embassy has warned US citizens to get in touch if they're trying to get out of Saudi Arabia, and we may see a repetition of what we saw elsewhere in the Gulf where people are having to drive hundreds of miles to safer countries like Qatar to be able to get on a plane and get out of the region. So, this is no longer a problem that the Saudis can ignore. Right, as you said, the Saudis had this perception that they'd been trying to maybe downplay the seriousness of some of this, obviously given the disruptions to life that seems to be kind out the window now. Saudi Arabia has also been really trying to position itself as this global hub of industry and trade and technology and other things. I imagine this all puts a really big dent in that effort. What are we hearing from the Saudis on all this? I mean, you're totally right. It has. It's been trying to open itself up as this kind of tourist idyll as a business hub, as a tech hub. In fact, it has a major conference underway right now taking place this week, where many of those industry leaders and politicians who were involved in the energy sector have been unable to go there or have been scared to go there for understandable reasons because of the high level of risk and those that are there are now going to face severe problems in getting out. Now, the Saudis describe this as a serious attack. The event of recent weeks are serious. Our response must be equally serious. President Trump was asked about it. He obviously condemned the attacks, but was also asked directly, actually, by one of our colleagues at ABC News, whether or not the US would consider helping the Saudis as they've been asking for some considerable period of time now for US assistance. I mean, decided whether to join the Saudis strikes on the route. We may look at it. We just found out about the recent attack. So we'll make a decision. We move very quickly. Now, to date, the US has kept out of it. It actually signed a separate deal with the Houthis because it was concerned about potential Houthi attacks against US shipping in the region. Now, this time around, President Trump is saying, well, US forces may get involved, but the reality is that the Saudis have been trying to push back the Houthis from the air, unsuccessfully. So, you know, people deride the Houthis as this bunch of rag-tag rebels in plastic shoes running around the deserts of Yemen. Well, you know, on one level that may well look true, but the reality is they're also technologically very advanced. They get support from Iran. Their offensive capability has grown, and as the Iranians have shown in their war against the US and Israel, they're capable of using the power of asymmetric warfare. In other words, drones and missiles. Okay, they don't have the big warships that the US has. They don't have the fighter planes, but they don't need them. They can they can inflict economic pain and physical pain. Look at the damage to US military installations across the region. The damage to Gulf economies, to gas producing facilities, to oil producing facilities, to the global economy. And you very quickly come to the conclusion that you don't need this mighty army to be able to bring to a halt a much greater power. And that's what we're kind of seeing with the Iranian US's really conflict. And we're also now seeing with the Houthis and Saudi Arabia. So, I think there would be huge risk for the US getting involved because right now, the Houthis are in a position because they've moved on the land to threaten a second major waterway, the Babel Mandab Strait, that is also now under threat from the Houthis. Now, the Houthis have said, they will only attack Saudi vessels. But if the US gets involved, then any vessels carrying oil or goods for commerce will also be susceptible if they carry US flag or they're sending goods to the US. And that will have a further disastrous impact on the economy. Well, Ian, we've spent a couple days talking about this deal on diesel that President Trump struck with Russia, ostensibly to help alleviate some of the high gas prices we've been seeing and to reduce the United States reliance on oil that travels through the Middle East. Now, of course, most experts say that this Russia deal won't actually do a ton to move gas prices. How should Americans now think about this conflict between the Saudis and the Houthis? Is this just going to drive up prices even more? Yeah, I mean, they should think about it like this. This is like having a headache and taking some pills, and it's not making a difference. In fact, that headache comes back even worse. There may be a small moment of respite potentially from the release of Russian diesel, although there are serious questions about how much diesel it can actually release, and given the levels of U.S. consumption, how much impact that will have. But the impact of these Houthis strikes on Saudi Arabia has already had an impact on oil prices. And what we've seen certainly over the last week that we've been talking about, even though they haven't been hitting Saudi oil facilities, they've been hitting the airport, this spooks markets. Oil prices are up again. Now, we have to wait because markets are always changing, so these things can change. But I think if anyone was expecting, certainly before the midterms or even in the short term, any immediate improvement at the gas pump, I think they're going to be disappointed. That headache is going to continue. Right. Well, Ian Panell, certainly not a headache talking to you. Thank you for explaining all that to us. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. All right, one more quick break when we come back after almost nine decades, the mystery of what happened to Amelia Earhart, maybe one step closer to being solved. One last thing is next. This message is brought to you by Avocado Mattress. And if healthy, comfortable sleep matters to you, this is one organic brand worth knowing. When you're shopping for mattresses, you can spend hours reading reviews and scrolling through photos. But the only way to truly know if a mattress is right for you is to feel it for yourself. That's why Avocado invites you to come lie down. Every Avocado mattress is got certified organic, assembled in our California facility with organic cotton wool and latex. No polyurethane foams, no fiberglass, certified by Made Safe and EWG verified. It's a difference you can feel. So curl up. Try any of our Avocado mattresses in person at an Avocado mattress store or 600 premier retail locations nationwide. 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And then, I'll join the international hunt for the Louvre Jewels. Heist at the Louvre, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app, or subscribe to 2020 True Crime Plus on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free. And one last thing. So if I asked you to name some famous aviators, there's a couple big names that jump to mind, right? You've got Wilbur and Orville, the right brothers. You've got Charles Lindbergh, and you've got Amelia Earhart. Earhart set a ton of records over the course of her time as an aviator. She became the first woman to fly solo over 14,000 feet in 1922. Ten years later, she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean on her own, only the second person ever to do that behind Charles Lindbergh. After that same year, she flew across the continental U.S. by herself. Yep, another first for a woman. Just a couple years later, she flew from Hawaii to California solo. No qualifier needed here, she was the first person ever to do that. Along the way, Earhart racked up awards like the Distinguished Flying Cross, given to her by Congress, or the National Geographic Medal, given to her by President Herbert Hoover, and documented by Pate Gazette. But if there's one dark cloud that's hung over the Earhart story, it's the mystery of what happened to her, again from Pate Gazette. In 1937, Earhart embarked on her most daring journey yet, an attempt to do what no one had ever done before, circumnavigate the entire world by plane. Her and her navigator, Fred Noonan, made it more than 22,000 miles into that journey, until… Earhart and Noonan disappeared somewhere over the Pacific. Despite one of the biggest search and rescue efforts ever undertaken until that point, no one has been able to find the plane, let alone any trace of the two people on it. But that hasn't stopped one intrepid crew from trying. That's Rick Pettigrew with the Archaeological Legacy Institute. He's one of the leaders of an expedition to a remote island in the Pacific Ocean called Nikima Roro. That's where his team of researchers believe, thanks to satellite images, the remains of that Lockheed Electroplane might be hiding. That plane, by the way, is also known as the Flying Laboratory. It was built with the help of Purdue University. The school's Steve Schultz is also on the expedition, and says Earhart's legacy looms large at the school. The team successfully arrived at the island yesterday after an 830 nautical mile journey. Today is going to be all about clearing vegetation, getting equipment set up, time is of the essence here. This is only a five day trip, weather and ocean conditions change fast in this part of the world. And that's not the only challenge they're facing. This is from an expedition there a couple years ago, documented by National Geographic. Up to three feet across and weighing in at over 9 pounds, coconut crabs are the largest on earth. Yeah, turns out thousands of these giant crabs live on Nikima Roro. This is from an expedition a couple years ago, where researchers found these crabs can actually climb trees, plucking birds off branches for a light lunch. When scientists left half a pig carcass out for research purposes, it took the crabs of the island, helped by their strawberry hermit crab cousins, just a week to devour the whole thing, carrying the bones back to their underground layers. Here's how one of the researchers in that Natuio piece explained it. And the results are about the most disgusting thing you've ever seen, but it is very enlightening. It is enlightening, not just because these crabs are forcing the crew of the expedition to sleep on the boat every night, but also because they might be key to finding the remains of Earhart and Noonan, again from Natuio. So right now, the biggest hypothesis is to see if we can find a crab burrow with the remains of some human right at the site. That would be like, unbelievable. A lot of our fascination with Amelia Earhart focuses on the end of her story, but that shouldn't take away from everything that came before. In between all the high flying adventures and ticker tape parades, Earhart also helped found the '99s, an international organization dedicated to the advancement of female pilots, which still exists today. And according to Purdue's Steve Schultz, her influence stretches even further than our atmosphere. "She made the foundation as an advisor to the Air Nautical Engineering Program that paved the way for the likes of Neil Armstrong and other members of our cradle of astronauts." It's an incredible legacy, regardless of what this expedition uncovers this week if they find anything at all. But one thing is for sure, Earhart's legacy does need one final chapter filled in. And we'll say when I was learning about Amelia Earhart back in school, giant crabs were not a part of the discussion. Hey, for live news any time, you can catch us on ABC News Live, on Hulu, Disney Plus, the ABC News app, and basically anywhere you stream live news. For Brad Milke, I'm Mike Tabaski, have a great day. The new documentary film Katzai Wild Hearts is coming to Disney Plus in Hulu, October 16th. The more we grow into Katzai, the more eyes that we have on us, we want to do everything for the fans. What do you sense the star-studded cast returns something we get this wake up You all got to unite how drink to that if you're gonna rise up in rule of the world You better get yourself a damn sense of humor FX is a chess 13 now streaming on Hulu