Will Chamberlain talks with Ben Weingarten about the federal investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar, the questions about her father's refugee application and her own naturalization that appear to sit behind the recent search of her home, and what a case to strip her citizenship could look like. The conversation also digs into the evidence that the man she married is her brother, Minneapolis's Somali community, fraud in Somali refugee resettlement, and the red-green alliance.

In this episode:

Ben explains how a column applying the Russiagate standard of links and ties to Omar grew into his 2020 book, American Ingrate

He argues that Omar personifies the red-green alliance between the progressive left and Islamists, and that the Democratic Party has moved in her direction since

He describes her father as a senior military officer in Siad Barre's Marxist regime who, according to reporting, presented himself as an educator when the family sought refugee status

Will lays out the legal theory that concealing service in a communist regime could be enough on its own to undo both her father's naturalization and hers

Ben describes Minneapolis's Somali community as clannish and insular, and says nearly everyone he spoke with there feared for their safety if they talked about Omar

He walks through the evidence that the man she legally married is her brother, including shared addresses, social media posts in which the man called her children his nieces and nephews, and the family naming convention

He says her testimony in a Minnesota campaign finance case that she had lost contact with the man conflicts with social media messages between them

Will and Ben discuss a new Washington Post report that the man withdrew a petition for permanent residency after immigration officials asked about the marriage, and Ben connects it to a 2016 FOIA request by Omar's immigration lawyers

Ben explains how the birth year in her official biography changed from 1981 to 1982, and why that one year matters for whether she qualified for citizenship through her father

Will argues that even if the marriage fraud is too old to charge, it could unravel the story her family told when it first came to the United States

Ben discusses why part of the family appears to have settled in the UK, and the fraud that led the State Department to suspend a Somali refugee program in 2008

He closes on the Islamist networks backing Omar and similar candidates, and recalls the longtime incumbent she unseated, Phyllis Kahn, telling him Omar was unbeatable in the district

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Ben Weingarten: The Federalist, author of American Ingrate · @bhweingarten

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Her father's past

02:42 Why Ben wrote American Ingrate

03:07 Ilhan Omar and the red-green alliance

07:58 Who was Ilhan Omar's father?

13:27 Could her father's past be enough to denaturalize her?

14:34 Inside Minneapolis's Somali community

20:55 The evidence that she married her brother

28:43 The Washington Post's buried revelation

29:30 Omar's immigration lawyers and the 2016 FOIA request

31:26 Two husbands at one address

34:03 1981 or 1982? Her birth year and her naturalization

38:01 Why the marriage could unravel the whole story

39:25 Why did the family split between the UK and the US?

43:14 Fraud in Somali refugee resettlement

48:51 The Islamist machine behind Omar

Will Chamberlain talks with Yoram Hazony, chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, about why the National Conservatism conference went to Jerusalem and what happened when four young American nationalists told an Israeli audience how support for Israel is softening on the American right. Hazony argues that the fight over Israel and the Jews has become the main threat to the cohesion of the Trump coalition, and that most American and Israeli Jews misread the Republican Party as a contest between Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson. The conversation also digs into Bezalel Smotrich's speech on Muslim immigration, Mike Doran's critique and the John Locke debate, James Lindsay, and the coming fight over who inherits the Trump coalition.

In this episode:

Hazony explains why NatCon, which normally alternates between the United States and Europe, held its twelfth conference in Jerusalem

He describes Israel as a model nation state and reflects on what a young, religious, high-fertility society can show Americans and Europeans

He argues that Bezalel Smotrich's speech was the first time a senior Israeli minister said plainly that Muslim immigration to America and Europe is bad for the West, for Jews, and for Israel

He introduces Gadi Taub, the former man of the left who has become one of the most popular intellectuals on the Israeli right

He explains why Israel and the Jews, barely mentioned in NatCon's first seven years, have become the main threat to the cohesion of the Trump coalition

He lays out the idea behind the panel with Matthew Peterson, Amanda Milius, Jonathan Keeperman, and William Wolfe: bringing the tough American right to Jerusalem to talk with the tough Israeli right

He argues that Jewish leaders in both countries see the Republican Party as Ben Shapiro versus Tucker Carlson and skip over the roughly 70 percent of the party in between

Will and Hazony respond to Mike Doran's argument that the panel failed to make the realist case for the alliance

Hazony answers the charge that he wants to write John Locke out of the founding and describes the four factions that make up the NatCon coalition

He contrasts Jeremy Boreing's constructive role on the right with James Lindsay's campaign against the nationalist camp

He argues that young American nationalists broke a de facto ban on going to Israel, and he previews NatCon in Washington, DC, three months from now

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Yoram Hazony: Edmund Burke Foundation · @yhazony

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Cold Open: The Fantastic Four

02:18 How did NatCon Jerusalem go?

03:06 Why hold NatCon in Jerusalem?

06:16 A young, religious society

09:00 Bezalel Smotrich on Muslim immigration

12:37 Gadi Taub and the Israeli right

13:55 What was the panel trying to accomplish?

19:15 Softening support on the right, and why the audience was Israeli

21:41 Ben Shapiro versus Tucker Carlson, and the 70 percent in between

26:20 Mike Doran's critique

35:56 Does Hazony want to expunge John Locke?

40:42 Lindsay, Jeremy Boreing, and the libertarian wing

51:09 James Lindsay in Israel

55:09 Breaking the taboo on nationalists going to Israel, and NatCon DC

Will Chamberlain talks with Bojan Pancevski, the Wall Street Journal's chief European political correspondent, about his book The Nord Stream Conspiracy and the small Ukrainian team that blew up the Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022. Pancevski explains how a seven-person crew on a rented sailing yacht destroyed one of Europe's most expensive pieces of energy infrastructure for about $250,000, and how German investigators tracked them down. The conversation also digs into Germany's long bet on trade with Russia, the Russia and CIA theories, Poland's refusal to cooperate, and what American conservatives misunderstand about Putin.

In this episode:

Pancevski recounts the September 2022 explosions, first registered as an earthquake, that tore through the world's biggest offshore pipeline system

He traces Nord Stream to Germany's decades-old "change through trade" policy toward Moscow and to Merkel's post-Fukushima nuclear shutdown, which deepened the reliance on Russian gas

He describes how a small group of Ukrainian intelligence and special forces veterans drew up a list of targets meant to choke off Putin's oil and gas revenue

He walks through how the team recruited civilian deep-sea diving instructors and tested them with wiretaps, hidden cameras, and staged arrests

He explains how the operation was paid for almost entirely by private donors, and what is known about who in Ukraine's chain of command approved it

He lays out why the theory that Russia blew up its own pipeline never made sense

He argues that Biden's pledge to end Nord Stream 2 referred to sanctions, which have kept the pipelines offline more effectively than explosives

He reports that senior CIA officials were relieved when Putin blamed the United States rather than Ukraine

He tells how German detectives cracked the case by combing through thousands of speed-camera photos and running one driver's face through recognition software

He explains why German prosecutors charged the suspects with war crimes ahead of the Hamburg trial that opens October 14

He describes how Poland obstructed the investigation, including a Polish judge who refused extradition and called the sabotage part of Ukraine's just war

He closes on what he thinks American conservatives get wrong about the war and why commercial deals will not move Putin

YouTube: [YOUTUBE LINK]

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/counterweight-with-will-chamberlain/id6803321469

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/18jtv7U8cB0IW82qM9xoK8

Bojan Pancevski: The Wall Street Journal · @bopanc

Will Chamberlain: @willchamberlain

Instagram / TikTok: @counterweightpod

00:00 Ukraine's target list

02:28 What happened to Nord Stream in September 2022?

05:25 Germany's change-through-trade bet on Russia

10:21 Merkel's nuclear shutdown and the gas addiction

12:46 How he got inside both the plot and the investigation

14:52 The Ukrainian team behind the sabotage

18:28 Recruiting and testing civilian deep-sea divers

21:28 A privately funded operation, and who signed off

27:44 Did Russia or the CIA do it?

32:07 What Biden meant, and why sanctions beat explosives

36:54 The German investigation and the speed-camera breakthrough

41:52 Arrests, the Hamburg trial, and the war crimes charge

46:12 Poland's refusal to cooperate

49:43 What American conservatives get wrong about the war

55:09 Why deals will not move Putin