A federal judge ordered the Justice Department to respond to requests to unseal the raid warrant for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after prosecutors asked to wait until the warrant was “fully executed.”
Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg set an Oct. 27 deadline Thursday in an order that granted only part of the department’s request for more time. The department’s response had been due that day.
The judge scheduled briefings through Oct. 30, meaning the warrant is likely to be unsealed in time to affect the Nov. 3 election.
The deadline covers requests from 14 news organizations, including The New York Times and the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch, to make the warrant records public, according to the department’s motion.
Homeland Security Investigations agents and DOJ officers searched Omar’s Washington home on Oct. 12, three weeks before the midterm election in which she is seeking to return to Washington.
“[G]ood cause exists to extend these deadlines until after the subject search warrant has been fully executed,” the department wrote in a motion filed on Wednesday.
The motion did not say when that would happen or what work remained. Under its main proposal, no new deadline would be set until the warrant was fully executed. The department would then have 30 days to notify the court, and both sides would get another week to propose “next steps.”
If Boasberg declined to wait, the department asked him to make Nov. 9 the deadline for all three requests, the date he had already set for Judicial Watch, the motion said.
Neither option presented by the department would have led to the records’ release before the election.
Boasberg did not adopt either timeline. But his order said the department’s response “may argue in part that the Court should not address the matter yet.” The order also gave any party opposing combining the three cases until Oct. 27 to object.
Boasberg also let the department explain its request in a sealed memo that only he will see, a one-sided filing known as ex parte. His order said he would require a redacted version on the public record if, after reviewing it, he decides one is needed.
In its request to seal the memo, the department wrote, “[Omar] may very well wish to keep these materials under seal. It is unknown what her position is.”
Judicial Watch did not oppose the DOJ request, but the Times and the news organizations did.
“The United States agrees that at some point in the future, some or all of these materials may be appropriate for unsealing, just not now,” the filing added.
In a response attached to the department’s motion, the Times wrote, “We are also perplexed regarding what ‘execution’ you refer to. As has been well-publicized, the Government executed the search warrant on October 12, 2026, and subpoenas have been served on Rep. Omar’s family members.”
“The continuing lack of transparency surrounding the search warrant and related filings is especially intolerable in the run-up to an election in which Rep. Omar is a candidate for office,” the Times added.
The department’s motion said notice of the requests did not arrive until Oct. 16, but a follow-up filing Wednesday acknowledged that lawyers for the news organizations emailed supervisors in the U.S. attorney’s office on Oct. 15.
In a second correction, the department said a Times lawyer had emailed a federal prosecutor about its request on Oct. 14, and the head of the office’s criminal division acknowledged it that evening. Both filings said the lead attorney did not receive word until Oct. 16.
Under Boasberg’s order, the applicants have until Friday, Oct. 30, to reply, four days before the election.
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