Ilhan Omar told friends years ago that the man who went on to become her second husband was in fact her brother, DailyMail.com can confirm
Abdihakim Osman is the first person to go on record to speak of how Omar said she wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the United States
It has long been rumored that Omar and Ahmed Elmi are siblings, but because of a lack of paperwork in war-torn Somalia, proof has never been uncovered
Osman said: 'She said she needed to get papers for her brother to go to school. We all thought she was just getting papers to allow him to stay in this country'
Omar was married to her second husband Elmi in 2009 by a Christian minister - although she is Muslim
She was first married to Ahmed Hirsi in 2002 in a Muslim ceremony, before they split in 2008 - but she later had another child with Hirsi while legally wed to Elmi
Osman said: 'When [Hirsi] and Ilhan got married, a lot of people were invited. It was a big Islamic wedding uniting two large clans in the community'
He added: 'When she married Elmi, no one even knew about it... No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the certificate years later'
'Squad' congresswoman Ilhan Omar told friends years ago that the man who went on to become her second husband was in fact her brother, DailyMail.com can confirm.
And now for the first time one of those friends has come forward to reveal exactly how Omar and Ahmed Elmi scandalized the Somali community in Minneapolis.
Abdihakim Osman is the first person to go on record to speak of how Omar said she wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the United States, at a time when she was married to her first husband Ahmed Hirsi.
But hardly anyone realized that meant marrying him.
'No one knew there had been a wedding until the media turned up the marriage certificate years later,' Osman, 40, exclusively told DailyMail.com.
Osman's revelations are sure to renew calls for an investigation into the Minnesota freshman representative who has repeatedly refused to answer questions on her marriage to Elmi.
She originally said the idea that the spouses were also siblings were 'baseless, absurd rumors', accusing journalists of Islamophobia, but has since stayed quiet.