Republican State Senator Takes Down False Claim About Ilhan Omar and Al Qaeda, Leaves up Another Post Calling Her a Terrorist

State Senator Oley Larsen, a Republican from Minot, still hasn’t responded to my requests for comment from yesterday over a Facebook post he made of a picture he claimed was controversial Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar at an al Qaeda training camp.

The photo is from the Associated Press. It was taken in a Somali military camp in 1978, years before Omar was born in 1982.

Larsen has now taken that post down (I preserved screenshots here), but he has left up a separate post made subsequent to the one I wrote about yesterday in which he, again, referred to Omar as a terrorist:

That post refers to this article about Omar’s re-election challenger in the 2020 cycle.

Just to be clear about what we’re talking about, Larsen made a post last night in which he claimed Rep. Omar is or was a member of al Qaeda. He has since deleted that post, but has subsequently created a second post in which he also refers to her as a terrorist.

That’s unacceptable. People who do this sort of thing aren’t fit to hold elected office.