Fifteen U.S. news organizations seek records from raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, arguing the public has a constitutional right to review them

Fifteen major U.S. news organizations asked a federal court on Thursday to unseal search-warrant records used in a raid earlier this week at U.S. Representative Ilhan Omar’s Washington, D.C., home. They argued that Americans have a fundamental constitutional right to know why law enforcement entered an elected official’s private residence and that investigative materials are presumptively public after a warrant has been executed and formally returned.

Fourteen organizations, including Reuters, The Associated Press, The Washington Post and CNN, filed a motion in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The New York Times brought a separate legal challenge seeking disclosure. The filings seek the warrant and its attachments, the underlying applications, probable-cause affidavits, any sealing orders, and the property inventory return from the October 12 operation.

Omar criticized the search, describing it as an effort by the Trump administration to intimidate political opponents. Tensions between her and U.S. President Donald Trump have escalated over regional law enforcement and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement initiative in her home state of Minnesota.

Trump has repeatedly linked the measures to fraud accusations involving Minnesota’s Somali community while targeting Omar’s background and citizenship.