Nobody Confirmed Anything

A form letter from a records office became a presidential confirmation in about nine hours. Watch how it was done.

Author’s Note

Full disclosure: Ilhan Omar and I have gone at it. Publicly, and privately, and not politely.

Which is exactly why I’m the right person to write this one.

Defending the process when it protects someone you like is easy…and worth nothing. This is the version that costs something.

-Jack

Nobody Confirmed Anything

A form letter from a records office became a presidential confirmation in about nine hours. Watch how it was done.

The Jack Hopkins Now Newsletter #1,007: Monday, August 24th, 2026

By this morning, half the internet believes the President of the United States confirmed that ICE has opened deportation proceedings against a sitting member of Congress. He didn’t. He didn’t say one word.

The mechanics are the story here…so…I want to walk you through them…step by step. Once you can see the assembly line…you’ll never unsee it.

The Document

Back in January, a reporter at Just the News filed a Freedom of Information Act request with ICE, asking for records related to Rep. Ilhan Omar.

In May, ICE answered. Here is the entirety of what they said:

The information is being withheld under Title 5, Section 552(b)(7)(A), because disclosure could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.

That’s it. That is the whole document. A citation to a statute. Boilerplate. The same paragraph that goes out on FOIA denials every day of the week.

Now, I’ll be fair…because being fair is the only way this argument survives contact with anybody who disagrees. That exemption is not nothing. Agencies generally don’t invoke 7(A) over an empty folder…and…the letter says ICE located responsive records and withheld them in full. That’s a real data point. Note it.

Just the News published the letter on August 11. It sat there for twelve days.

Then…on Sunday night…Trump posted the article to Truth Social. No comment. No caption. No statement. He just shared a link.

Seven Steps

Here’s the chain. Count them.

One.

A records officer at ICE cites a statute in May.

Two.

Just the News reports it accurately on August 11: ICE refuses to disclose records, cites ongoing enforcement proceedings. Perfectly good headline. Nothing wrong with it.

Three.

Twelve days later…Trump shares the link with no commentary.

Four.

Gateway Pundit runs it as BOMBSHELL: Trump Confirms ICE Enforcement Proceedings Underway.

Read the first sentence of their own story: he “appeared to confirm.” The headline promoted “appeared to” into “confirms” somewhere between the body copy and the top of the page.

Five.

Townhall picks it up and writes that “the president did confirm” ICE has begun proceedings. Now…there’s a mainstream conservative outlet stating it flatly…which gives everyone downstream…something to cite that isn’t Gateway Pundit.

Six.

X accounts with six-figure followings: “BREAKING: President Trump confirms ICE ENFORCEMENT PROCEEDINGS being taken against Ilhan Omar.” One of them adds that Attorney General Todd Blanche is “rumored to be on the case.” Rumored by whom? The post doesn’t say. By the next repost the word “rumored” is gone and Blanche is simply on the case, personally.

Seven.

Aggregators write it up for an international audience as established fact.

Seven steps…from a form letter…to a presidential confirmation. The last five took about nine hours.

Their Own Readers Caught It

You want to know who flagged this first?

Their own people.

Over on Free Republic, which is not exactly a hotbed of liberal media criticism…a commenter noted that a headline saying “Trump confirms” and a first line saying “Trump appeared to confirm” are two different claims. Another said he was sick of “bombshells” and “BOOMS.”

When the audience you’re farming…has to correct the farmer…the operation has gotten sloppy.

The Allegation Itself

Since we’re here, let’s handle the substance honestly.

The claim is that Omar married a man named Ahmed Nur Said Elmi in 2009…that Elmi was her brother…and that the marriage was meant to help him with immigration status. She has denied it repeatedly and called it false. They divorced in 2017.

Where does it stand after roughly ten years? No DNA evidence. No court finding. No criminal charge. No conviction.

In March, Vice President Vance told a podcast host that Omar "definitely committed immigration fraud" and that he and Stephen Miller were working out what the legal remedies were.

By May, at a White House briefing…he'd softened it considerably: he didn't want to prejudge an investigation…something seemed fishy…DOJ was looking at it. Note the direction of travel. The man running the administration's fraud task force got less certain over two months. The accounts posting this morning are more certain than he is.

So could there be something there? Sure. Could ICE be looking at it? Something is in a file somewhere…and the agency says releasing it would interfere with a proceeding.

But…here’s the sentence that ought to be in every one of those stories and appears in almost none of them: a FOIA exemption…is not evidence of guilt. It establishes that records exist…and…that somebody doesn’t want to release them. That’s the whole content.

To their credit…a few outlets did say so. You had to scroll.

The Part Nobody In The Chain Mentions

Ilhan Omar is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement.

She has spent this year doing oversight of that agency. On January 10 she was denied entry to the Whipple Building in Minneapolis…along with two Minnesota colleagues.. while attempting an inspection.

Three days later, in her district…federal agents smashed a disabled constituent’s car window and dragged her from the vehicle on her way to a medical appointment.

That month an ICE officer shot and killed Renee Good…and Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse who was filming them.

Both were U.S. citizens. She brought four Minnesotans to the State of the Union… among them a twenty-year-old American citizen who was shackled at the Whipple facility after repeatedly telling agents he was a citizen. One of her guests was arrested in the gallery for standing up.

She is, in short…the most persistent congressional critic that agency has.

And…this month…a document about her surfaces from that agency…and gets amplified by the President.

I’m not going to tell you those facts are connected. I don’t know that…and neither does anyone typing “BOMBSHELL” this morning.

But…I’d note what came out of a Denver courtroom two weeks ago.

A White House aide named Emily Underwood sent an email at 2:43 in the morning on December 15…summoning officials from five federal departments to a same-day “brainstorm call” about prioritizing Colorado for adverse action.

Colorado had jailed a Trump ally and refused to spring her. The next day…Transportation and Energy canceled hundreds of millions in grants to the state. Judge R. Brooke Jackson…reading the email from the bench: “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Given that…a reasonable person is allowed to ask whether federal enforcement machinery gets pointed at critics. That’s not a conspiracy theory. That’s a pattern …with a court docket attached.

Why Not The Easy Version

I could have written the other piece. Trump Targets Omar. Big outrage, good numbers.

Writing it would have required accepting the same premise the other side accepted: that something happened Sunday night. Nothing happened Sunday night. A man shared a link. That’s the entire event.

And…here’s what it costs you to get that wrong. The day something real does land…a subpoena…an actual filing…a document with a signature…you will have already spent your credibility on a repost.

The machine isn’t built to convince you of any particular thing. It’s built…to keep you at high alert about nothing…so that when something arrives…you’ve lost the ability to tell the difference.

The antidote is boring, and it’s three questions. What is the primary document? Who is the original source? What did the person actually say, in their own words?

Sunday night the answers were: a FOIA denial letter dated May 12, a records officer at ICE…and nothing at all.

Everything past that…was somebody else’s addition.

#HoldFast

Back soon.

-Jack
Jack Hopkins

P.S. Seven steps. Nine hours. Zero new facts.

Somewhere in there…an agency’s refusal to hand over paperwork became a presidential announcement…an attorney general got personally assigned by rumor… and a congresswoman was tried and deported on X before breakfast.

If they can build all of that out of a form letter…imagine what they can build out of something real.

That’s not the part that concerns me. The part that concerns me…is how many people are now waiting for it.

Sources

The primary document and the original report

• ICE refuses to disclose records on Ilhan Omar fraud probe, cites ongoing ‘enforcement proceedings’ — John Solomon, Just the News, Aug. 11, 2026. The original reporting, and the source of the FOIA response.

• 5 U.S.C. § 552(b)(7)(A) — Cornell Legal Information Institute. The exemption ICE invoked, in full text.

• FOIA Exemption 7(A) guidance — DOJ Office of Information Policy, on what the exemption does and does not establish.

Straight coverage of what Trump actually posted

• Trump shares report on ICE withholding records linked to alleged immigration fraud involving Ilhan Omar — Primetimer. Notes explicitly that the exemption does not establish wrongdoing or that charges were filed.

• Is Ilhan Omar getting deported? Trump’s post raises eyebrows — Blaze Media. Uses “raises speculation” rather than “confirms.”

The amplification chain, in order

• BOMBSHELL: Trump Confirms ICE Enforcement Proceedings Underway — Gateway Pundit. Headline says “confirms”; first sentence says “appeared to confirm.”

• Wait, Is Ilhan Omar in the Process of Potentially Being Deported? — Townhall

• Reader thread on the Gateway Pundit piece — Free Republic. Commenters flag the headline-versus-body discrepancy themselves.

• Ilhan Omar Under ICE Investigation? Trump ‘Confirms’ Enforcement Proceedings — Economic Times / Times of India. The claim reaching an international audience as fact.

Omar’s own record on ICE oversight

• Omar blasts Trump admin after being kicked out of ICE facility — Fox News, January 2026

• Omar to spotlight ICE’s recklessness with State of the Union guests — Feb. 2026

• Statements on ICE operations in Minneapolis — Rep. Omar’s press office

• Squad Dem slams Vance’s DOJ fraud probe claims — Fox News, May 2026. Omar’s response to the earlier allegations.