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WASHINGTON — <\/span>Attorneys for Rep. Ilhan Omar asked the Justice Department on Friday to immediately return property that federal agents seized from her home this week<\/a>, arguing that the search stemming from an immigration fraud investigation was \u201cneither justified nor lawful.\u201d <\/p>\n In a letter obtained by The Associated Press, lawyers for the Democrat from Minnesota described the investigation as a baseless effort to go after a longtime political target of Republican President Donald Trump, noting that the search was conducted just weeks before the midterm elections, in which Omar is on the ballot. <\/p>\n Omar’s attorneys wrote that there is “no legitimate basis for any suggestion that she has violated any law concerning her citizenship status.” <\/p>\n \u201cThis vindictive, retributive, and politically motivated criminal investigation into one of the President\u2019s chief congressional critics violates Representative Omar\u2019s constitutional rights and threatens the separation of powers,” Omar’s legal team wrote in the letter first reported by The Wall Street Journal. <\/p>\n A Justice Department spokesperson said the letter from Omar’s defense team was \u201criddled with false allegations and inaccuracies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur attorneys and law enforcement partners complied with all court orders and legal obligations, as they always do,\u201d department spokesperson Emily Covington wrote in a text message Friday evening. <\/p>\n Monday’s search of Omar’s Washington, D.C., home this week drew swift condemnation from Democrats, as the Justice Department has historically sought to avoid public investigative actions involving a candidate within 60 days of a primary or general election. <\/p>\n Federal authorities seized Omar’s phone in the search<\/a> and have issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas, including to some of her relatives, a person briefed on the probe told the AP this week. <\/p>\n The scope of the investigation into Omar is unclear, though Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has suggested that authorities were examining potential crimes related to her family\u2019s immigration paperwork. Separately, Washington’s U.S Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said<\/a> \u201cthere are several investigations going on\u201d related to Omar and her office is probing issues concerning the lawmaker\u2019s financial disclosures. <\/p>\n In the letter, Omar’s attorneys accused the Justice Department of violating longstanding agency policy designed to avoid potentially influencing an election. They also raised concerns about whether the department appropriately followed all of the specific instructions by the magistrate judge who approved the search.<\/p>\n In addition to the return of her property, Omar’s attorneys are demanding that the Justice Department preserve any audio and video that was taken during the search, according to the letter. <\/p>\n Omar has repeatedly refuted<\/a> allegations about her marriage and immigration status raised by conservative critics, even before she joined Congress.<\/p>\n According to her House biography, Omar has said she and her family fled Somalia\u2019s civil war when she was 8: \u201cThe family spent four years in a refugee camp in Kenya before coming to the United States in 1990s. In 1997, she moved to Minneapolis with her family.\u201d She became a lawfully naturalized U.S. citizen in 2000, according to her lawyers. <\/p>\n Conservative online sites have alleged that Omar married a brother to commit immigration fraud. Omar has broadly denied the allegations as \u201cdisgusting lies\u201d<\/a> and called the insinuation \u201cabsurd and offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n The search of her home came just days after Trump referred pejoratively to Omar at a rally in Tennessee as coming from a country of \u201ccrime and squalor\u201d and suggested that Vice President JD Vance \u201cand our people\u201d were investigating her. Hours after the search, Trump told reporters he had \u201cnothing to do\u201d with it and it\u2019s \u201creally up to the DOJ.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n