California Gov. Gavin Newsom, one of President Donald Trump’s most persistent political adversaries, accused the federal government on Monday of running an authoritarian playbook after federal agents searched the Washington-area home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, just 22 days before the November midterm elections. The governor’s office posted its reaction on X at 10:16 a.m. on Oct. 12, 2026, in a message of just two sentences.
The full post
The statement came from the official @CAgovernor account and attached coverage of the search from The New York Times. In its entirety, it read:
“Twenty-two days away from the midterm election, another politicized “investigation.”
Straight out of the authoritarian playbook.”
The brevity of the post carried its own message. Newsom did not name Trump, the Justice Department or the Department of Homeland Security. By describing the search as “another” politicized investigation, he framed it as one in a series. The word “authoritarian” is language he has used repeatedly in his confrontations with the administration.
What happened at Omar’s home
Federal agents executed a court-approved search warrant at Omar’s home on Monday, according to three people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. A Justice Department spokeswoman said agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a component of ICE, carried out a judicially authorized search of a home in the Washington area as part of an “ongoing federal criminal investigation,” and declined to comment further.
The warrant lists a series of potential immigration crimes under investigation, including false statements and fraud in immigration paperwork, as well as a general conspiracy charge, a person familiar with the document said. Prosecutors first submitted the application more than a week ago. It was approved only after discussion with the federal judge about possible constitutional issues, including the speech or debate clause, which protects members of Congress.
The 60-day rule
The timing is central to the criticism. Justice Department policy has long urged prosecutors to avoid overt, unnecessary investigative steps that could affect an election, especially if those steps could wait until after the vote without harming the investigation. The guiding principle is that prosecutors should be cautious in politically sensitive cases. The rule is not absolute, with exceptions for cases where evidence could be destroyed, crimes are ongoing or people are in danger, and its exact parameters have long been debated. For many years, however, Justice Department officials have treated a publicly observable search of a politician’s home or business as the kind of overt activity to avoid.
The rule has also been invoked by Trump himself. During the 2024 campaign, he and his lawyers, some of whom now run the Justice Department, accused special counsel Jack Smith of violating the 60-day rule by filing court papers describing the evidence in the case over the 2020 election. That filing was made in response to a court order, which falls outside the policy.
Omar, Democratic leaders and Trump respond
Omar called the search “an attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.” She wrote: “For ten years, Trump has targeted me with baseless lies and smear campaigns. This is just the latest escalation in his campaign of political intimidation,” adding, “I will not be silenced.” House Democratic leaders Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar condemned the search as a “rogue abuse of power.”
Trump told reporters ahead of a campaign rally in Ohio, “I understand they’re looking at her very carefully.” He also said, “She comes from a country that is a non-country. And then she comes over here and she complains about our Constitution. I think she’s a terrible person, but that’s really up to the D.O.J.” In September, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said his department was investigating issues surrounding Omar and her family’s immigration and suggested the end result could be deportation.
The administration’s earlier statements about Omar
Senior officials had signaled for months that Omar’s immigration history was a target. White House border czar Tom Homan said late last year that earlier efforts had been stymied by the statute of limitations and that he had no doubt Omar had committed fraud. In March, Vice President JD Vance said, “We actually think that Ilhan Omar definitely committed immigration fraud,” and said the next step was to figure out how to “build a case necessary to get some justice for the American people.”
Omar has said for years that the allegations are false and politically motivated. In a September fund-raising email, she wrote: “I will say it again so it’s as clear as possible: I’m not at all worried about these investigations, because they are complete shams.” Previous federal inquiries, including one into whether she married a sibling to obtain a green card, ended without charges, and she has called those claims “absurd and offensive.”
Trump’s long-running attacks on Omar
Trump’s public criticism of Omar, who was born in Mogadishu and arrived in the United States as a refugee, predates the current investigation. In December 2025, he called her “garbage” at a Cabinet meeting, said of Somali immigrants that “I don’t want them in our country,” and later said Somali immigrants had “destroyed our country.” He also spoke of deporting her. Omar answered at the time: “His obsession with me is creepy.”
Newsom’s own clash with the Justice Department
Newsom’s use of the word “another” reflects his own situation. On June 15, 2026, he released a video accusing Trump of directing the Justice Department to investigate him and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. “Today, my wife & I joined Donald Trump’s hit list,” he wrote. In the video, he said: “Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets. He’s coming after me because I’m considering running for president.”
He said federal agents had recently knocked on the doors of family, friends and former employees. “Not because they found a crime, because they’re simply trying to find one,” he said. Speaking directly to Trump, he said: “You can subpoena my records,” and “Put my name on every and any enemies’ list you have, but leave my wife and family out of your personal vendetta.” A person familiar with the matter denied that a specific investigation targets the governor but acknowledged multiple federal probes surrounding Newsom, including one related to his wife’s taxes. Newsom’s office said neither he nor his wife had been subpoenaed.
A years-long feud
The dispute between the two men stretches across Trump’s second term. Trump has said he would support Newsom’s arrest over alleged obstruction of immigration enforcement in California, and he has derided the governor as “Newscum.” The two have clashed over climate policy, pipelines, withheld wildfire aid and Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to California last summer. California has filed dozens of lawsuits against the administration, and Newsom has called the Guard deployments a “breathtaking abuse of power.”
The midterm stakes and the retribution tally
The midterms are where Newsom’s fight has been most direct. He led the passage of Proposition 50 in November 2025, which redrew California’s congressional maps in response to Trump-backed redistricting in Texas, and accused Trump of attempting to “rig the midterms.” On election night, Newsom said: “We can de facto end Donald Trump’s presidency as we know it the minute Speaker Jeffries gets sworn in as speaker of the House of Representatives.” He has also predicted Trump will get “crushed, shellacked, in the midterms.”
Concerns about the use of federal power against political opponents have been broader than any single case. A Reuters tally published in November 2025 found that at least 470 people, organizations and institutions had been targeted for retribution by the administration since the beginning of Trump’s second term. The prosecutions of former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James in autumn 2025 drew a joint statement from 22 attorneys general, including California’s, warning that such actions are “the hallmarks of police states and authoritarian regimes — not America’s democracy.”
What comes next
Omar has represented a solidly blue Minneapolis district since 2019 and faced no serious primary challenger this year. Scores of supporters rallied in a Minneapolis park on Monday afternoon with signs reading “Stand with Ilhan” and “Hands off the Somali community.” City Council member Jason Chavez said, “Folks are riled up. What is happening is just wrong.” Omar’s immigration history has been scrutinized since her first run for the state legislature in 2016, and if investigators concluded she had derived citizenship improperly, the Justice Department could pursue criminal or civil denaturalization.