U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen, a Colorado Democrat, accused President Donald Trump on Monday of using the federal government’s own agencies against his political opponents. She did so hours after Homeland Security Investigations agents searched the Washington home of Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota. The president sits atop the chain of command for the armed federal agencies in question, and Pettersen’s post puts that authority at the center of a fight that now reaches into the final weeks of the 2026 midterm campaign.
What Pettersen Said
Pettersen published the following post on X at 11:26 a.m. on Monday, October 12, 2026:
“Trump is using his own agencies to go after political rivals which is straight out of an authoritarian playbook.
What’s happening to @Ilhan should terrify all of us, no matter our political party. This is a tragic day for our country and the freedoms we once protected. It will take all of us to fight back and put an end to the madness.
My thoughts are with Rep. Omar and her family. We won’t stop until there’s justice.”
The post makes three distinct moves. It accuses the president of directing federal agencies at rivals, it frames the matter as one that should alarm Americans of every party, and it ends with a pledge to keep pushing. Pettersen does not say what form that pursuit of “justice” would take.
The Search at the Center of the Dispute
Pettersen attached an Associated Press report to her post. According to the Associated Press, agents from Homeland Security Investigations, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, searched Omar’s home on Monday as part of a criminal investigation. The Justice Department said agents had executed a judicially authorized search warrant in the Washington area tied to an ongoing federal criminal investigation, and gave no further details. The street was blocked off, and agents removed boxes labeled as seized evidence.
The timing drew immediate attention. The search came roughly three weeks before the November 3 midterms, in which Omar is seeking reelection and control of both chambers is at stake. The Justice Department has historically avoided public investigative steps involving a candidate in the run-up to an election, including a guideline of about 60 days. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and other top Democrats condemned the search in a joint statement. Omar called it an “attempt to target political enemies and weaponize federal law enforcement.”
Trump told reporters hours after the search that he had no involvement and that the matter was up to the Justice Department. Days earlier, at a rally in Tennessee, he had disparaged Omar’s homeland and suggested that Vice President JD Vance and others were investigating her. Vance has previously accused Omar of immigration fraud, which she denies. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last month that an ongoing investigation was examining possible fraud in her family’s immigration paperwork, and he insisted any case would stem from wrongdoing rather than politics.
Pettersen’s Record on the Issue
Pettersen’s language on Monday echoes earlier statements on her official website. In June 2025 she voted against House Resolution 516, a Republican measure addressing the Los Angeles immigration protests. She said the resolution would give Trump a green light to “weaponize law enforcement” and target immigrant communities. Her statement also objected to the deployment of the military against civilians, a point that puts the use of armed federal forces at the heart of her objections.
Her criticism later turned to the Department of Homeland Security. When she voted against the fiscal 2026 DHS appropriations bill, Pettersen said it gave then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump a greenlight for ICE operations that were “lawless, dangerous, and out of control.” House Republicans rejected her amendments, which would have barred transfers of federal law enforcement officers to ICE and kept ICE from holding detainees in federal prisons. Her office noted that she has demanded accountability from Noem, including calling for Noem’s impeachment.
In January, Colorado’s Democratic House members called for Noem to resign or be impeached after the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents in Minnesota that month. Pettersen was among the lawmakers who have also demanded answers from ICE over enforcement operations in Chaffee County, Colorado.
Earlier Clashes With Trump
Pettersen has been one of Trump’s sharpest Colorado critics since his return to office. Ahead of his March 2025 address to Congress, she predicted it would bring “more lies, more hate, and more chaos.” In August 2025 she sent the president a letter blaming his tariffs for higher back-to-school costs for Colorado families. She also joined Colorado Democrats in criticizing his decision to move U.S. Space Command out of Colorado Springs, a defense-related move they described as politically motivated.
After his February 2026 State of the Union address, Pettersen issued a statement saying Trump had “doubled down” on his anti-immigrant agenda and “name-called and mocked his political adversaries.” She called him “unhinged and unwell.”
A Long History Between Trump and Omar
Omar, first elected in 2018, represents Minnesota’s 5th District, which includes Minneapolis. She was among the first two Muslim women in the House and is the first African refugee elected to Congress. Republicans removed her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2023, citing her remarks about Israel. In January, Trump lashed out at her at an Iowa rally hours before an assailant sprayed her with vinegar at a Minneapolis town hall. The attacker was sentenced to 14 months in prison.
Is It an “Authoritarian Playbook”?
Pettersen’s phrase draws on a body of political science. Scholars Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way and Daniel Ziblatt use the term “competitive authoritarianism” for systems in which elections continue but those in power tilt the field against opponents. In 2025 they argued the United States had crossed that line. A peer-reviewed study of authoritarian elections by Tavishi Bhasin and Jennifer Gandhi found that, in the months before a vote, regimes tend to aim repression at opposition elites rather than ordinary voters.
The record has another side. No charges against Omar have been announced, and the Justice Department says the search followed a judge-approved warrant. Mullin has said any case would rest on alleged violations of the law. Trump and his allies have long argued that the Justice Department was weaponized against him during the Biden years, and Attorney General Pam Bondi created a “Weaponization Working Group” for that purpose. Whether the Omar search fits the pattern Pettersen describes will depend on what, if anything, the investigation produces.
The Pattern Critics Point To
Democrats point to the prosecutions that followed Trump’s September 2025 public demand that Bondi act against former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff. Comey and James were indicted within weeks, and former national security adviser John Bolton was charged soon after. Trump has defended his stance, saying he is seeking justice after what he calls vengeful prosecutions of himself.
The Political Stakes
The search lands in a campaign season in which Democrats are heavy favorites in the House. Polymarket, the prediction market, priced the odds of a Democratic House majority at 91 percent on Monday. The scope of the Omar investigation remains unclear, and Pettersen’s closing line, “We won’t stop until there’s justice,” offers no indication of what her side will do next.