30:18
This is Bloomberg Law with June Grasso on Bloomberg Radio. They have Representative Ilhan Omar, who is said to have married her brother. This is a scam. Now she's trying to deny it, but it's impossible to hide because, you know, it happened . She shouldn't be allowed to be a congresswoman, I'm sure people are paying attention to that, and she should be kicked the hell out of our country. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has been the target of President Trump's wrath for years, but this week the Trump administration significantly increased its scrutiny of the Minnesota Democrat. On Monday, weeks before the midterm elections, federal agents raided her
Washington home, and federal prosecutors issued more than a dozen grand jury subpoenas to members of her family. The scope of the investigation into Omar is unclear, although Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen has hinted that they are looking into potential crimes related to Somali-born congresswoman has repeatedly denied allegations of wrongdoing, calling them false and politically motivated. With me is immigration law expert Leon Fresco, a partner at Holland&Knight. He headed the Office of Immigration Litigation in the Obama administration. Leone, start by telling us how Omar became a U.S. citizen. So, there's a key legal fact that's not really being discussed here: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar has never been naturalized
in person. She never participated in the naturalization procedure. She obtained citizenship automatically by law on the day her father took the oath, as she was a lawful permanent resident under the age of 18 living with him. And this is precisely the difference that determines everything in this matter. Because one of the things they check is whether she was actually under 18 on the day her father naturalized in 2000. And there is a separate question about whether her father was eligible to naturalize because he persecuted people as part of the Somali armed forces. In 2019, during Trump's first term, a review of her immigration status was conducted that looked at these two issues but found no violations. So now they're reviewing it again?
That's right. So, in 2019, a fraud detection officer checked the date of birth in the father's case and issued a one-page report stating that there was no basis for prosecution and the evidence was insufficient. And both of these versions have been carefully studied. Since this was not a trial, you will not face a retrial for the same charge, but here is the key point. This is now a Brady case file, which means the government must produce this memo, and Congresswoman Omar will be able to use it to prove the absence of knowingly false testimony. Because you have to prove that the judge would probably have made a different decision given that data, and if you have evidence that the judge didn't do that before, then you can say, "See, in 2019 they said it was
nothing, so why are you now saying it's a huge distortion of the facts that would change everything?" Is it difficult, especially in African countries, to obtain accurate birth records in Somalia, where Omar was born? Only 6% of births were registered with government agencies. So the question is, is there any evidence of her birth date? This becomes a separate, huge problem, because in many countries-and you can check this on the State Department website- birth certificates are simply not issued. Therefore, it is necessary to obtain written birth certificates. This means that a group of
people sign affidavits stating, "Yes, I can certify that you were born on this day." And maybe you'll be lucky enough to get a hospital record that can confirm it. So this is a separate problem: how can you even disprove that her date of birth is exactly that? Let's say her father lied in the documents he submitted. Whether it's about her age or military history. What can the government do about this The government's usual course of action in the event of a lie in an application for citizenship is to send a notice of the commencement of the procedure for deprivation of citizenship. Of course, if the statute of limitations for providing false information to the government has not expired, which is 5 years, you can be held liable for perjury
. But that was in 2000, so the statute of limitations has long passed. An ordinary living person could be held accountable for perjury. Such a person may also be subject to the denaturalization process: they are sent notice, given an opportunity to respond, and then a hearing is held before a federal district judge to determine whether the misrepresentation was material and would affect the citizenship application in a way that would require the person to be deprived of status. The problem is that Omar's father is dead, and here we are faced with a lack of precedents, as they say, to show: "Where are the court decisions on the deprivation of citizenship of deceased persons?" And that's exactly what they'll have to
do in this situation. And, obviously, there are due process issues, since Omar's father cannot appeal the charges, for one thing. And secondly, should Omar herself be punished, even if she was, for the distortion of facts that her father made, when she herself did not make any distortions, and that the naturalization law itself states that it is the person who must provide false information, not a member of her family. Authorities are talking about a possible crime. Do you see any evidence of possible crime regarding immigration documents? So, there are no crimes left that are not time-barred. If there was false information on the citizenship application, it was in
2000, so the statute of limitations for that is 10 years, and that brings us to 2010. Any other false statement would have a statute of limitations of 5 years. The only question is, is she still lying about certain things? If they know she's lying about her date of birth, and can prove she knows, then does a recent passport application, or voter registration application, or anything else fall under the statute of limitations so they can hold her liable for lying about the date on any of those documents? If the investigation does not lead to the results we talked about, the administration is exploring the possibility of revoking her citizenship certificate. What is it
and how is it done? This is a fascinating provision that is almost never used, but the idea is to shift the burden of proof. So let me explain this to you. So, when Ilhan Omar's father became a naturalized citizen, the way she was able to get a passport was by filing an application called an N-600, which says, "Hey, I got my citizenship that day too." And you get a paper called a certificate of citizenship. She did not undergo naturalization, but became a citizen. So what Section 342 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) does is it allows the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to administratively revoke that certificate if they can state that the citizenship was obtained illegally or through fraud. So what happens is this: they
have to give her a notice of intent and 60 days to respond. And that's it. Then there is the USCIS officer who can make a "yes" or "no " decision. And if they decide "yes, we're canceling it," that's it. She no longer has that piece of paper. Now, what does this mean? This simply means that she no longer has the piece of paper, but she still has the status. But here's what happens next. When she needs to prove her status, say, when applying for a passport or claiming she is a citizen to run for Congress again or for something else, it now shifts the burden of proof to her. Now she has to prove that she is a citizen, and she has to prove her date of birth, instead of the government having to prove that her date of birth was
false, now she has to prove it. So, if we're in a 50/50 situation now, where no one can prove what her date of birth was, normally she would win, but not in this interesting situation, where the problem is that she can't get a document because the government has taken away all the documents that would prove her citizenship. This demonstrates the incredible twists and turns of immigration law, which is always so complicated. So when she wants to get those documents back, she will have to prove that she is a citizen, instead of the government proving that she is not. This is such a strange thing, and there could be due process questions about the government's use of this statute, so perhaps the entire scheme of Section 342 of the Immigration and
Nationality Act will be found unconstitutional with respect to Ilhan Omar. I mean, there are so many perspectives on this. As a result, she will have to raise millions of dollars to pay for all the legal costs associated with this. In all these situations, even with the revocation of his citizenship certificate, does Omar have the opportunity to raise the defense that the government's actions are politically motivated? Right. When she files a lawsuit in federal court to get her citizenship documents back, whether it's a passport or a certificate, she will be able to claim that it was revoked in a sham process that was politically motivated. And the court
may even grant her the right to obtain evidence to verify whether any USCIS officer received instructions to do this, or any memos to that effect. We'll see. Normally you wouldn't be able to access such materials, but depending on the federal judge assigned to the case, they may allow the evidence to be disclosed. And this could open a whole Pandora's box regarding the administrative case. Or if criminal charges were brought against her, she could claim that it was malicious prosecution and demand that the charges be dropped.
How long do you think this process will take? Could it drag on until the end of the Trump administration Certainly. There is no chance that Ilhan Omar will be deported before the end of the Trump administration. Zero chances. And you might ask, " Why is that?" Well, let me give you one example. Mahmoud Khalil-was he deported? And he's not even a member of Congress. He's a legal permanent resident who makes inflammatory comments, you know, incites people, and he lied on his green card application. And it goes through various levels of constitutional and administrative litigation. In his case, imagine the case of Ilhan Omar.
There is no chance that this will be completed before the end of the Trump administration. So, if a Democrat or Republican is elected president who doesn't want to move the Omar case forward, then this case will simply, you know, be closed, and it will be reinstated in the status it has today in October 2026. And so it will probably happen if she can stay ahead of the times. But in the meantime, as you said, there are a lot of legal bills. Thanks for your thoughts, Leon. Thank you very much. This is Leon Fresco from Holland&Knight. Next: Fed Governor Lisa Cook postpones White House hearing as her lawyers question his impartiality. I'm June Grasso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. In
August 2025, President Trump took the unprecedented step of removing Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, alleging that she had provided false information in mortgage documents She, uh, it looks like she had violations, and she can't have violations, especially like that, because she's responsible for, come to think of it, mortgages, and we need people who are 100% honest. But in June of this year, the Supreme Court refused to allow the president to fire Cook, finding that he had not given her sufficient advance notice and opportunity to respond to allegations of wrongdoing. So now Trump appears to be preparing the ground for Cook's second firing by announcing the formation of a committee to investigate allegations of mortgage
fraud. A committee made up of Cook's lawyers expressed skepticism about the committee's objectivity and fitness for purpose. With me is constitutional law expert David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University. David, Trump announced the creation of this investigative committee. Now you have to go back to 1912 to find something similar, when President William Howard Taft created a commission to remove two officials from an independent agency. And it seems that this is the only such commission. Well, in Australia they do this all the time. This is called " kangaroo court". Apparently, the committee is fully staffed with people who bow to the will of the president and will do exactly what he wants, and he wants to get rid of Lisa Cook.
But I find it particularly noteworthy that they included Kevin Hassett on the committee, who could very well take her position if she is fired. If this isn't the conflict of interest above all conflicts of interest, then I don't know what is. Are there any rules and regulations here about what will be allowed? I mean, it all seems so unstructured. That's because that doesn't happen. Since the Federal Reserve was created, it has been believed that it should be independent, and that its effectiveness depends on its independence from the president. The accusations against her were examined in detail and found to be completely baseless. This is just a lever to get her out of the Fed and intimidate a few more members he does n't like either. So,
there is no precedent for this, because it is an unreasonable and inappropriate act. It seems they are trying to adhere to what the Supreme Court stated in its decision. Cook's lawyers said they have serious doubts that these hearings are legitimate and in accordance with the law. What does the law say about this? Well, there is a law called the Due Process Clause, and that's what the Supreme Court meant, and one of the requirements of that clause is a decision maker who has not formed their opinion in advance. This committee seems as dependent on Trump's preferences as it is possible to be. I assume he is gathering information on behalf of President Trump, but he is doing so without any impartiality, and it is quite obvious that whatever facts are
presented, he will still do what he has already said he wanted to do. And once he gets rid of her, he'll take on Jerome Powell. Should Cook attend these hearings knowing who is on the committee? It appears she intends to go, although her lawyer said she will not be able to attend on the date set by the White House, namely November 5, as she has official duties in Europe at that time. I think it's very, very risky to say that these hearings are so bad that I won't be attending them. Many will say that we can't know in advance, so I think the best option for her would be to attend the hearing to present facts that don't harm her at all
, and then see what they do. This administration is so determined to go along with whatever the president wants that they will certainly fire her, and if they do so while ignoring the facts she presents, then she will have a very strong procedural case. So, she was first accused of mortgage fraud over a year ago, and she still hasn't been charged with any criminal offenses, which is saying something. The Supreme Court did not specify in its decision what exactly would be considered a good reason. They stated that the existence of grounds for dismissal in any given situation would depend on the seriousness of the alleged acts and the extent to which they were related to the problem here is that she is not accused of official misconduct.
ticking a box that perhaps shouldn't have been ticked, long before she joined the board. There is no indication that she benefited from this in any way, unlike President Trump, who was found to have distorted property values to obtain very substantial benefits from insurers and banks. So it largely doesn't matter even if it were true, and there are good reasons to believe it isn't. The bigger picture is that the Supreme Court, both in Dr. Cook and in the related Slaughter case, made it very clear that the president does not have the right to a Federal Reserve Board of his own choosing; that this part of the statute is legal, constitutional, and any sensible president would understand this signal and back down. Just as any sane president would read
what the Supreme Court said about tariffs and back down, or read what the Supreme Court said about birthright citizenship and back down. This president will not back down. This president doesn't understand hints. And the Supreme Court, I think, will quickly realize that if they want the president to do something, they need to lay it out in black and white in unambiguous terms. There is no subtlety with this president So, we can expect that after this hearing she will be released and then she will file an appeal and the case will go to the Supreme Court again. Oh, yes, definitely. And I think it's entirely possible that the Supreme Court will overturn her dismissal again, but for specific reasons, rather than saying broadly, "Leave Dr. Cook alone.
You already have a lot of your own appointees on the board, and your economic leadership isn't great enough for you to have complete control." But that's what they should do. They should say, "Enough. We've already dealt with the second case. We don't want to deal with the third. Just step aside." But unless they say it in almost the same words, he will continue to do it. Cook's lawyers say the earliest she can appear before the committee is after the Fed's policy meeting on December 8-9. So, we'll see what happens there.
Let's move on now to what could be the next indictment from the Justice Department against Trump's perceived enemy. Cassidy Hutchinson, former top aide to then- White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was one of the key witnesses in the House of Representatives investigation into the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Among other things, Hutchinson testified that Trump urged his supporters to go to the Capitol, despite knowing they were armed. Something like: remove the flags. They are not here to hurt me. Let them in. Let my people in. They can go to the Capitol after the rally is over.
They can go from. Ellipse. Federal prosecutors are presenting evidence to a grand jury in Washington, and it appears the issue is whether Hutchinson lied to Congress in her testimony. But it is very difficult to prove a case of perjury. This is a very complex case, and it is telling that it is not being prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney in Washington, which usually handles such cases, but by the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. I don't know how you could call this a civil rights case even by the broadest interpretation of the laws, but I assume the case was transferred to the Civil Rights Division because they are the only prosecutors who agreed to sign these papers. The Cassidy Hutchinson case seems
very strange to me, because, listening to her testimony before the committee, I cannot recall a more cautious witness. She didn't talk about what she didn't know. She only told what she heard, and her testimony was extremely cautious. It's hard to imagine how a case of perjury could be built without recordings of her conversations with people, and there is no indication that such recordings exist. The part of her testimony that caused the most resonance was that Trump allegedly did not want to return to the White House on January 6 and at one point grabbed the wheel of his SUV, trying to reach supporters near the Capitol.
The president reached forward to the steering wheel of the car. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm. Said, "Sir, you need to take your hand off the wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol This looks like a classic argument where everyone has their own version. Can they prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Secret Service agent they could fire for confirming her words was telling the truth and she wasn't? No sane jury would spend even 10 minutes on this. They will need a jury that has never been wrong about anything and has never told the same story twice in different words. Their expectations of accuracy here are absurd, and besides, it raises the broader question of whether this is political revenge,
which it clearly is. Footage of the President of the United States struggling to get behind the wheel of a Secret Service car looks extremely unsightly, especially when he was trying to facilitate an attempted overthrow of the government. So naturally, she is an embarrassment to the president, and I think any grand jury and most grand juries would agree that this is political vendetta. And Trump called for her criminal prosecution in 2024. So this seems to be a motion to dismiss the case due to biased prosecution in itself. And to obtain a conviction for perjury, prosecutors would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Hutchinson lied, that she did so knowingly, with intent, and that it was a material statement.
They know they won't win the perjury case against Cassidy Hutchinson. They know they won't win the illegal possession of shells case against James Comey, but they'll still make them spend time and money defending themselves, and it'll leave a stain. Additionally, federal prosecutors should not bring a case unless they believe they can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. Yes, that's quite understandable. Ethical federal prosecutors have, for the most part, resigned. They were faced with a choice between their ethics and their work, and the more ethical chose their ethics and left. So you're left with people who have
resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to have to make ethical compromises for the most part, and you're left with people who are probably not that good lawyers. Or these are very inexperienced lawyers. Thank you very much, David, as always. It was Professor David Super from Georgetown University Law School. Next: NFL says federal regulators failed to oversee Kalshi. I'm June Grasso, and you're listening to Bloomberg. Excuse me, sir. Have you heard of Kalshi? Yes, I heard. This is a prediction market that allows you to trade anything from sports to culture.
Simply find the event and select "yes" or "no" depending on what you think will happen. But the NFL is not happy with the football bets placed on Kalshi. So much so that she is confronting Kalshi and the Trump administration in a high-profile legal battle and asking the Supreme Court to intervene. The NFL says federal regulators and prediction markets like Kalshi have refused to implement necessary safeguards, paving the way for, quote, "unscrupulous players" to do harm, trade on insider information, and undermine the integrity of the game. The league is calling on the Supreme Court to allow states to regulate prediction markets and to consider an appeal by New Jersey regulators in a dispute over who should regulate Kalshi. With me is
securities law expert James Park, a professor at UCLA Law School. Jim, so New Jersey lost the case against Kalshi in the Third Circuit Court. Explain why the NFL wants the Supreme Court to hear this appeal. Well, they're trying to get the Supreme Court to review a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which ruled that Kalshi, a prediction market, could likely prove that various contracts for sporting events like NFL games are swaps. And if they are swaps, they are regulated by a federal agency called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). And the NFL claims that the CFTC will not be able to handle this
task because they only have 500 employees. In Pennsylvania, you know, three or four hundred employees in just the gambling industry. The CFTC is involved in many other important matters, including overseeing the commodity and derivatives markets. How much attention will they be able to pay to the regulation of contracts related to sporting events? The NFL says it has written several letters to the CFTC outlining the types of contracts it opposes. For example, those that can be easily manipulated by a single athlete, such as field goals, where the kicker can intentionally miss. She also objects to betting on injuries, refereeing, and other things that insiders may know in advance, such as the first pitch in a game. So does it seem like
the Commission is unwilling to act on the NFL's concerns? Perhaps it's an unwillingness or inability, as the CFTC really has no experience in regulating rates, so they may simply not have the infrastructure to make informed decisions on such requests. This is one of the possibilities. Another possibility is that this is part of a conscious policy choice by the CFTC-to allow these types of sports contracts to flourish without regulation. It is also possible that this could be a conscious political decision. The NFL and the states argue that are actually gambling, not financial swaps, as Kalshi and the CFTC claim. Tell us about the parameters of this issue, which is key in this case It's, uh, a fine line, right? A swap is
essentially a contract where the payout depends on a specific event or contingency, and the law says that this must be related to potential financial, economic, or commercial consequences. So the traditional understanding of a swap is that I enter into swaps to hedge economic risks, right? Whether it's, you know, the risk that interest rates will rise or commodity prices will fall. I can enter into swaps to manage economic risk. The question is whether contractual events based on the results of sports games fall under this. They, you know, have some economic impact, right? If you win a bet, but do you contract for a sporting event to manage the economic consequences? Usually
not, right? And for the most part, it's just a game of chance. You're just placing a bet, and it's not because you feel like this team winning will affect my business, although there may be a small number of cases where that might be the case. So there is a very fine line as to what Congress meant when it said that a contract must address various economic consequences. And, you know, the Third Circuit Court said, "Yes, there are economic consequences if the bet wins one way or the other." The Sixth and Ninth Circuit Courts stated, "Well, it's not really about managing economic events that might affect your business or anything like that." "Which is a more traditional understanding of what a swap is."
It sounds like a gamble to me, but there are differences between courts. And 39 states support New Jersey in the Supreme Court. So there is a great incentive for the Supreme Court to take up this case. There is a discrepancy in the decisions of the district courts, and that is the reason why the Supreme Court is taking up the case. The fact that so many states want the Supreme Court to hear the case also points to concerns about the lack of clarity about what exactly the law entails.
Will gambling be regulated by the states, or will it be regulated by the CFTC? And then there are other stakeholders, like the NFL, who are affected by gambling decisions and want to have their say as well. So, there seems to be significant support for the Supreme Court to bring some clarity. And what the NFL stated in its amicus brief is that, you know, part of what we want to know is who the regulator is, right? If we know, we can focus on the CFTC, if it's the CFTC; if not, then we don't want to waste time on a federal agency that doesn't actually regulate these contract events. If the Supreme Court takes up the case, will the decision be based on whether it is swaps or rates, or are there a whole host of other factors at play?
I think it will be a combination of both factors. I think they will look at the law first. They will try to interpret the wording. They will try to assess: are these swaps according to the text of the law? Furthermore, I believe that if the wording is ambiguous, they will turn to other considerations, such as the principal issues doctrine and broader policy considerations that may be relevant to Congressional intent. I think it's going to be a combination of all these different things, and that's why different district courts are reaching different conclusions, because the answer doesn't point clearly in one direction. If we focus on the text itself, the
Third Circuit Court was able to quite logically interpret it as covering contractual events related to sports. So this is certainly an acceptable textual interpretation of the provision, and it is really up to the Supreme Court to decide who is right. I mean, how important will the issue of states' rights versus federal rights be, where the NFL in its memo asked the question: " What constitutional authority allows Congress to abrogate the traditional police powers of states to regulate interstate gambling ?" I mean, how much of this is part of what the Supreme Court might consider if it takes the case? I think that will be a big part of the Supreme Court's concern in evaluating the case, because under the Third Circuit's decision, you're going to get de facto
federal preemption over state-level gambling regulation. And the question arises, did Congress intend to do this when it passed the Dodd-Frank Act in 2008? And as the NFL points out, at the time there was a federal ban, essentially, on sports gambling. So it would seem odd if the Dodd-Frank Act, giving the CFTC jurisdiction over swaps, was intended to allow the CFTC to regulate gambling when it was already prohibited by other law at the time. And the NFL is citing the doctrine of principal issues. Are we reading the law in such a way that it reshapes a large national regulatory framework that has a significant impact on the economy? So I think this will be a very strong argument for the Supreme Court.
The CFTC in the Trump era. Is the CFTC different? Is there a different view or a different regulatory approach under Trump than there was under Biden? This is clearly a more deregulatory approach, and from what I understand, they can only have one commissioner, and there is no balanced composition of commissioners who can express their opinions and at least justify the need for stricter regulation. So this is definitely different from the Biden administration, and it is possible that under a future administration, the CFTC will become more regulatory-friendly. Therefore, it is not entirely clear what is best for them.
You know, if you're against regulation, it might not be the best idea to concentrate all the power in the CFTC, because maybe the next administration will decide to introduce a whole bunch of new gambling regulations, and they'll be very sweeping. This is certainly an opportunity that could come in two or six years, or however long it takes for a new Democratic administration to come into being. So, Kalshi is betting that the CFTC will remain in this deregulatory mode. That's right. Kalshi also stated that the CFTC's current rulemaking takes into account many of the NFL's alleged concerns. Do we already know what these rules are? I do n't think so. I think they are still in development. And, you know, I think the NFL is saying that
they're just uncomfortable working with this regulator, and they have some concerns about his approaches. And that's why they gave examples of proposals they want the CFTC to adopt, but which they have n't adopted, or do n't seem to be going to adopt. So even if they move forward with rulemaking, I think the NFL's position is that they're not being listened to very much, and the approach they're taking is going to hurt the game, in their opinion. This will hurt our business, and we would be better off working with state regulators in this particular area. And the numbers are staggering. The NFL noted that on the first Sunday of the 2026 season, more than half of all betting volume in the prediction markets-$ 1.8 billion of the $3.3 billion-was NFL-related, and they
said any delay by the court would lead to increased harm to consumers and a risk to the integrity of the game. But it doesn't seem like Major League Baseball is bothered by this, as five teams have signed multi-year deals with Kalshi. Yeah, I think, you know, given the volume of betting on the NFL, the profitability of the league, and also the concerns about many aspects where corruption can creep into the game, if we lose trust in the integrity of the results, if we stop believing in true sportsmanship, then there's a fear that fans will just lose interest and switch to something else. And, essentially, their concern is that manipulation and fraud have spillover effects on other stakeholders. So this kind of speculation is something that
really worries the NFL. Because it is very difficult to control. It is very difficult to control things like refereeing. It's very difficult to control, you know, situations like player injuries. And things like this can really open a Pandora's box of questions about what really happens at the crucial moments of these sporting events. I would be surprised if the Supreme Court didn't take up this case. And we may find out as early as December whether they will take this case up for consideration in the current term. Always a pleasure, Jim. Thank you very much. It was Professor James Park from the Angeles School of Law. That concludes this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show.
Remember, you can always get the latest legal news on our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at www.bloomberg.com/podcast/law. And don't forget to listen to the Bloomberg Law Show every night at 10:00 p.m. Wall Street time. June Grasso was with you, you're listening to Bloomberg.
