Why the Foreign Affairs Committee Is the Wrong Seat for Ilhan Omar Right Now

Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota wants her old seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee back. Omar has said she has gotten most of her seized devices back and wants to return to the panel Republicans removed her from in 2023, according to a segment of Larry O'Connor's program highlighted by Hot Air. With Democrats taking control of the House in January, her party's leaders will soon hand out committee assignments, and her bid will be an early test of their judgment.

Omar is entitled to make her case. Her constituents re-elected her, and like every American she is entitled to the presumption of innocence in any federal inquiry. But a seat on Foreign Affairs is not a right that comes with a House voting card. It is a trust, and the record gives Democratic leaders good reason to say not now.

In February 2023, the House voted 218-211 along party lines to remove Omar from the committee. The resolution pointed to a string of her past remarks about Israel and its supporters, comments that critics in both parties had called antisemitic. One of those remarks, a 2019 post suggesting that support for Israel was driven by money, drew a rebuke from House Democratic leaders at the time, and Omar apologized for it.

That apology mattered, and she deserves credit for it. But the episode was not an isolated one, and the 2023 vote did not come out of nowhere. Two years earlier, a Democratic majority had stripped Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of her committee assignments over her own past statements, and later removed Rep. Paul Gosar from his. Democrats set the standard that members can be judged by their words when committee seats are handed out. Republicans applied the same standard in 2023.

Foreign Affairs is no ordinary assignment. Its members help shape American policy on foreign aid, arms sales, sanctions and the State Department, and they receive sensitive briefings about allies and adversaries alike. That includes Israel, America's closest partner in the Middle East, at a moment when the United States is still working to end its war with Iran and keep the Strait of Hormuz open.

Then there is the federal investigation. The Associated Press reported that Omar's phone was seized and that relatives were subpoenaed in a criminal probe. Omar has said she was not told what federal agencies are investigating. No charge against Omar has been announced, and she should not be treated as guilty of anything. But common sense says a member under an open federal criminal probe should not be given new access to a committee that handles some of the nation's most delicate foreign policy business until that cloud has lifted.

That is not a partisan standard. Members of both parties have stepped back from committee work while under investigation before. In 2023, Republican Rep. George Santos temporarily stepped down from his committee assignments while he faced investigations. Asking the same patience of Omar is not singling her out. It is applying a rule that protects the institution.

Republicans who voted to remove Omar in 2023 have not changed their view of her record, and conservative commentators have questioned her bid this week. The decision, though, now belongs to Democrats. When the new Congress convenes in January, the Democratic caucus and its leadership will decide who sits where, and the final word will rest with Hakeem Jeffries and his team.

Democrats won the House by promising to lower costs and restore trust in government. Rewarding a member with a contested record on Israel, and an open federal probe, with one of the most sensitive seats in Congress would cut against both promises. Saying not now is not a punishment. It is prudence, and it is the same standard Democrats once insisted on for Republicans.

If the investigation ends without charges, Omar can make her case again, and the House can weigh it on the merits. Until then, the country is better served by a Foreign Affairs Committee whose members are not waiting to learn what federal agents found on their phones.