This column recently posed a question about former President Barack Obama that has become even more relevant this week: Why does our country’s pre-eminent political elder statesman keep helping the radicals who are trying to seize control of his party? We live in strange political times but one especially odd phenomenon is the former president who occasionally ventures out in public to urge Democrats to reject wacky ideas—and then supports the candidates who promote them.

Now Mr. Obama is not just backing radical leftists as they campaign for office. He’s making fact-free assertions that investigating a particular radical member of Congress is an abuse of power. Are Democratic elected officials above the law?

Mr. Obama posts on It is a basic principle of American democracy that the government can’t selectively target individuals simply because of their political beliefs or what they say. But that’s exactly what the Trump Administration is doing to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

To understand why this is so appalling, it’s important to know the facts. Congresswoman Omar came to this country with her father when she was 12 years old. Five years later, her father became a naturalized citizen. If Ilhan had been 18 at the time, she would have had to apply for citizenship separately. But because she was 17, she became a naturalized citizen automatically…Now the Administration is actively trying to deport Congresswoman Omar, seemingly based solely on the unsubstantiated theory that she was actually 18 when her father was naturalized, and therefore is not a citizen.

Federal agents have raided her home, confiscated personal records, and seized her phone — all to try and uncover a nonexistent smoking gun from 20 years ago that will somehow make their case…How would Mr. Obama know what evidence exists or does not exist? In the long post, he continues to assert that there is nothing to this case but a partisan effort to intimidate. If that’s true, how did federal law enforcers persuade a judge to sign a warrant?

The question became even more intriguing when the Washington Post reported last week that the warrant was authorized by U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Sharbaugh. When he was a lawyer in private practice, Mr. Sharbaugh donated to various Democratic political campaigns, including those of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. Mr. Sharbaugh twice clerked for Judge Robert L. Wilkins, appointed by none other than President Barack Obama to a federal district judgeship and then to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Putting the cherry on the top of this liberal judicial sundae, Judge Sharbaugh was sworn into office by Judge James Boasberg, pre-eminent judicial enabler of the abuses committed by the FBI against basic political liberties.

A lot of conservatives are attacking Mr. Obama for his rank hypocrisy, and fair enough, given that it was his administration that abused the surveillance powers of the federal government by turning them against Team Trump. The Russia collusion hoax, hatched during the Obama administration, has poisoned our politics for years. Perhaps Mr. Obama is simply assuming without knowing any of the particulars of the Omar case that the bar for investigating political adversaries is just as low as it was during his administration.

But this case is about more than the abuses for which Mr. Obama has never taken responsibility. It’s about more than his election-season recklessness and seeming disregard for the judicial reputations of even his philosophical allies.

It’s bad enough and corrosive enough for the rule of law when government agencies are enlisted in lawfare of the Obama-Biden type practiced against Mr. Trump. It also undermines respect for the judiciary when people assume that a judge will always rule with the side of the president who appointed him. Now Mr. Obama is rushing further down the path of disrespect for our rule of law. He’s suggesting that even when a Democratic judge signs off on an investigation conducted by a Republican administration, it is per se illegitimate when it targets one of Mr. Obama’s radical political allies.

Rep. Omar deserves the presumption of innocence just like anyone else. But she deserves no special protection beyond the rights of an ordinary citizen. This is especially important given that as a member of Congress she is among those who impose laws upon us, a power that gives her an exceptional ability to do harm. Declaring someone in her position off limits to law enforcement would be a deep corruption of our form of government. In Other News Flanagan’s Fraud Flub Speaking of Minnesota, Democratic Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is competing for a U.S. Senate seat against Republican political newcomer Michele Tafoya.

The challenge for Ms. Flanagan, after working alongside Gov. Tim Walz for two terms, is to explain why the state’s various frauds against taxpayers prevented him from seeking re-election but shouldn’t disqualify her from higher office. The trick is to try to define what she did as lieutenant governor in a way that does not intersect with any of the frauds. Adam Duxter reports for CBS News from Minnesota on a recent debate: Flanagan and Tafoya… sparred about the Minnesota fraud crisis.

Tafoya said Flanagan and the Walz administration let billions of dollars walk out the door. Flanagan, on the other hand, says Republicans have fraud problems of their own.

During the debate, Flanagan did her best to distance herself from Walz and any decisions he had around fraud. She also touted her support of the Office of Inspector General and harsher penalties for fraudsters.

Tafoya said she’d support deportations for non-citizens caught committing fraud and mandatory prison sentences for American citizens. She also did her best to tie Flanagan to the fraud committed in Minnesota.

“The governor has been very clear that he, the buck stops with him. He was the one who had oversight here. I’ve led on issues like paid family and medical leave, a nation-leading child tax credit, making sure that kids get breakfast and lunch at school. Those are the things. And those are the areas where I took the lead,” Flanagan said.

This column will go out on a limb and guess that wasn’t the answer that Ms. Flanagan practiced before the debate. Childhood nutrition programs are among the areas where taxpayers have been brutally victimized, and it’s not exactly ancient history.

Not even two months ago the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis stated in a press release: United States Attorney Daniel N. Rosen announced that three defendants in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme have been sentenced to a total of 155 months in prison for their role in the $250 million fraud scheme that exploited the Federal Child Nutrition Program during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abdihakim Ali Ahmed, 40, of Apple Valley, Minnesota, was sentenced to 54 months in prison for one count of wire fraud and one count of money laundering. Ahmed was sentenced before U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel on August 26, 2026. He pleaded guilty on March 24, 2025.

Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim, aka “Salah Donyale,” 43, of Minneapolis, was sentenced to 36 months in prison for one count of wire fraud. Omar-Hashim was sentenced before U.S. District Judge Nancy E. Brasel on August 27, 2026. He pleaded guilty on December 13, 2023.

Ahmed, Ghedi, and Omar-Hashim are the 24th, 25th, and 26th defendants, respectively, to be sentenced in the Feeding Our Future fraud scheme.

James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival” and also the co-author of “Borrowed Time: Two Centuries of Booms, Busts and Bailouts at Citi.”Follow James Freeman on to the Best of the Web To suggest items, please email best@wsj.com.