Ilhan Omar investigation: The timing could matter

Tom, is this simply an immigration fraud investigation or do you have or does the federal government have reason to investigate any other type of wrongdoing? I'm not going to go there. Not even a little bit? Not even a little bit. That's a question for the FBI. Okay. I know things, but that's the question for the FBI. Borders are Tom Holman speaking last night about the federal immigration investigation into Congressman Ilhan Omar. According to the Trump administration, Omar is under multiple probes, including potential immigration fraud. Meanwhile, Representative Omar responded this week after her D.C. home was searched, saying Trump and his administration have been after her since she arrived in Congress, adding, quote, I have always stood up to him and that will never change. Join us now to dive into this is Hamline University professor of law and political science, Professor David Schultz. David, good to see you. Thanks for joining us. My pleasure. Thank you, Leah. This is a complicated one. There's an argument that the search of Representative Ilhan Omar's D.C. home may have violated the Hatch Act. Explain for us a little history lesson what the Hatch Act stems from and how that argument applies. Well, the Hatch Act was passed during the 1930s, and it prevents federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity. And the reason why I mention this here is that I would have not necessarily have looked at this as a Hatch Act issue, but if in fact the federal government or Homeland Security or the FBI is being asked to perform political type of actions, then there's clearly a Hatch Act violation that would be there. But again, I think the bigger question sort of revolves around why now? And what I mean by that is that Ilhan Omar is 44 years old. She was naturalized at age 17 this is 27 years ago the questions become regarding whether or not this is actually a live investigation do statute of limitations apply and why within 60 days of an election because generally the policy is not to do any type of major legal action against sitting public officials within 60 days of an election so that they don't affect the outcome of an election. So lots of legal and policy questions that are out there. Yes, and we're far less than 60 days away from the election. We're about 16 days away from it. So likelihood of it holding up in court? Well, we don't know. I mean, that's the issue at this point, is that we don't know what the investigation is. If it's about immigration and claim that there was immigration fraud that occurred 27 years ago. If I'm Ilhan Omar's attorney, the first thing I'm gonna argue is and say that this is so long ago that the law expired, that you lost your opportunity to be able to do anything. I think that's going to be one question. I think another question is going to be, as Ilhan Omar, Representative Omar, has raised here, how much of this is political retribution? Because there have been other cases where the Trump administration has tried to go after former FBI director, the attorney general in New York, a prosecutor in Atlanta, all political opponents and they've been dismissed and so again there are a lot of questions regarding how much of this is legitimate legal investigation versus how much of this is is political retribution but again since we don't have all the details regarding what the investigation is about that raises again a lot of questions that we just can't answer okay switching to an entirely different situation that has gone viral in the last 24 48 hours or so relating to the University of St Thomas where you also happen to be an adjunct professor in the law school. St. Thomas is looking into a situation involving a student walking into a Turning Point USA event last week at the University of Minnesota and captured on camera saying to someone off camera, go back to your country, followed by the B word. This is circulating online like absolute wildfire. And some critics are arguing that it violates the student code of conduct. What legal questions or issues do you see from this? And could that happen? Could this woman get kicked out of school for comments made like this? Okay, first off, I don't know the student. And so I have no connection with her whatsoever. But it's a private university. Private universities have really broad leeway with student codes of conduct to be able to discipline students. And so on one level, if St. Thomas has decided that there is a code of conduct and this student violated it, they do have, again, pretty broad legal leeway to be able to do this. The concern becomes, in general, if this is a non-school event taking place outside of school hours, should a school have the authority to be able to regulate people's private behavior when it has nothing to do with the school? That would be sort of a broader question here. But in general, again, private schools and St. Thomas is a private school can require students to have certain types of code of conduct. But again, as I pointed out here, how far should that long arm be able to reach? All right. As always, we have more questions, but we're out of time. So we'll have to stop you there, Professor David Schultz. Thank you. Appreciate it. My pleasure. Thank you. All right. We'll see you again soon.