|

Days after the Trump administration’s unprecedented raid of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minnesota) house just weeks before the midterm elections, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) has not once publicly defended the progressive Democrat against the naked political prosecution.

The Democratic leader — one of the most powerful in the country — has not issued statements to the press or through his social media channels about the Homeland Security Investigations raid on Monday, nor has he done any media appearances to comment on the issue, which critics have described as a five alarm fire for the state of democracy in the U.S.

This is despite the fact that the Trump administration is waging an inter-agency effort to denaturalize and deport Omar, as reports have uncovered this week. The timing of the raid is also unprecedented, coming just 22 days before the midterm elections in which Omar is on the ballot; these elections should be of grave import to Schumer, since they’ll determine whether or not Democrats will have the power to follow through on their pledges to hold Donald Trump accountable for his escalating fascist authoritarianism.

Other top Democrats have spoken out in defense of Omar — but even those statements have been muted in relation to the magnitude of the attacks.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) and other House Democratic leaders issued a short statement following the raid that called it “deeply disturbing” and said that it “raises serious questions” about the Trump administration’s “weaponization of the federal government.”

The only mention of consequences in the statement, however, is a promise that the Democrats “will deliver full accountability for the rogue abuse of power from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice.” There is no mention of what that “accountability” would entail.

Jeffries also addressed the issue in an interview on MS NOW about the elections. Throughout the 11-minute interview, Jeffries doesn’t bring up the attacks on Omar once — until he’s asked about them at the very end. In that answer, he simply says that the Department of Justice (DOJ) “is going to be held accountable” and rattles off a list of other people that Trump has tried to prosecute, including Republican Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell.

The Democratic Party has also been relatively mum. Chair Ken Martin’s statement about the raid was short, simply calling it a “new low for the Trump administration.”

By contrast, it was shorter than the post about the raid by far right former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said that she and Omar are “far apart” on beliefs but called the raid a distraction from real issues like gas and health insurance prices: “People are so sick and tired of the bullshit,” Greene said.

This is despite the fact that Democrats have many avenues to defend Omar. The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Trump administration officials had already tried to search Omar’s immigration records for evidence to take away her citizenship in 2019, but found insufficient evidence to mount a full investigation.

None of the top Democrats’ statements named Trump’s attacks on Omar as openly racist and Islamophobic, despite Trump having called Omar and other Somalis “garbage” for years. Meanwhile, a group of prominent ethics lawyers have said that they believe the actions of the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were actually illegal. The lawyers, including former counsels to the White House, said that the raid was a violation of the Hatch Act because of its timing in relation to the election.

“DOJ and DHS’s decision to instigate this raid at this very moment and for these alleged reasons is unexplainable — except for as a politically motivated use of power to influence the Minnesota congressional election in violation of the Hatch Act,” the lawyers wrote.

Critics say that Schumer’s silence may be explained by the simple fact that he does not ally himself with Omar, despite sharing a party with her. Omar is a vocal critic of Israel; Schumer is a vehement supporter of the genocidal state. In 2019, when Omar criticized the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC — one of the most powerful groups in Washington for decades — Schumer and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) piled on to Omar, forcing her to apologize and smearing her as an antisemite.

“Schumer’s silence is hardly surprising,” wrote Jeet Heer for The Nation. “Because Omar has been outspoken in her criticism of Israel and the Israel lobby, establishment Democrats such as Schumer have often kept their distance from her.”

This and Omar’s other progressive viewpoints may also explain the relative media silence about the attacks. Media critic Adam Johnson compared legacy media’s coverage of the Omar raid to Trump’s raid on conservative John Bolton, which spawned an explosion of scathing columns and opinion pieces. By contrast, Johnson noted, the raid of Omar’s home has scarcely prompted any op-eds or columns in the legacy corporate media — only an Atlantic article that argued for both sides.