A legally blind “outlaw biker” in Kansas is facing federal charges after threatening Rep. Ilhan Omar’s life on social media, later telling police that he hated the progressive Democrat from Minnesota “due to her disrespect for the United States and using God’s name in vain,” according to a probable cause affidavit reviewed by The Independent.
“I’m going to kill Ilhan Omar!” Wichita resident and MAGA fan Adam Lee Osborn posted January 23 on Facebook, the affidavit says.
Under questioning the next day by investigators, Osborn, 60, referred to Omar using a variety of vile slurs and “stated that ‘someone needs to do something to ‘em,’” the probable cause affidavit alleges. “Adam also referred to the newly elected mayor of New York, Mayor Mamdani, and stated that ‘someone needed to take his sorry a** out too, and they need to.’”
Six days before Osborn’s public call for Omar’s assassination, he posted a picture of himself on Facebook, wielding an assault-style rifle in one hand while holding a high-capacity magazine aloft with the other.
“Amen brother,” an associate of Osborn’s commented underneath. “Get right with God and get ready to rock-n-f****in-roll!!”
“[O]h I’m geared up, brother!” Osborn replied.
In another post, Osborn warned, “Ilhan Omar/you’re dead!” an examination of his Facebook page shows. He also shared paeans to President Trump, railed against immigrants, writing, “If illegals can come here unimpeded, I can kill them unimpeded,” and asked, “How the f**k do I end up a minority in my own country? This sh*t comes to an end, NOW!”
Trump recently intensified his longstanding animosity toward Omar, a Muslim who was born in Somalia and came to the United States as a refugee when she was a child, deriding her as “garbage,” accusing her, without evidence, of large-scale fraud and whipping up a rally crowd in Pennsylvania by angrily declaring, “She should get the hell out. Throw her the hell out.”
The bombast has real-world effects, with Trump’s perennial anti-Islam remarks having contributed to a sharp uptick in hate crimes against Muslims, according to research by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University-San Bernardino.
Seamus Hughes, a senior research faculty member at the University of Nebraska Omaha's National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center, and an expert on homegrown extremism, told The Independent that the threat of political violence has rarely been more present than it is now.
“The ease of which some Americans freely wish death on public servants should be concerning for us all,” Hughes said. “There are multiple ways to express your displeasure with elected officials, none of which should involve racist and violent rhetoric. There continues to be a concerning number of people in this country who think there are no consequences for encouraging violence over political disagreements. The rising number of arrests involving threats against public officials should put that belief to bed.”
Osborn does not yet have an attorney listed in court records, and was unable to be reached for comment. A call to a phone number listed for Osborn in the probable cause affidavit was out of service on Monday.
Last Friday, following a series of death threats aimed at Omar by a Facebook user calling himself “Lee Mason,” the Kansas Bureau of Investigation submitted a voluntary emergency disclosure request to the social media platform for the subscriber information behind the account, according to the affidavit in Osborne’s case.
“I am an old disabled outlaw biker!” the profile says. “I love God and I love my country!”
Facebook provided a phone number, a date of birth and an IP address that traced back to Wichita, the affidavit states. It says investigators checked the number and birthdate against a law enforcement database, which linked them both to Osborn, who had been using a pseudonym online. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation then passed the information off to detectives with the Wichita Police Department, who located Osborn at an inpatient healthcare facility in town.
The detectives – one of whom serves on an FBI task force and is deputized to enforce federal laws – told Osborn that they “would like to speak with him about Facebook posts that he made online,” to which Osborn “immediately responded, without questions posed, that it was about ‘Ilhan Omar,’” the affidavit continues.
“Yeah, I wrote those,” Osborn said, according to the affidavit, which was unsealed Monday in Wichita federal court.
Osborn at first claimed that the Facebook posts were simply “his way of ‘venting,’” before “advising of reasons why he did not like Ilhan, i.e. due to her disrespect for the United States and using God’s name in vain,” the affidavit alleges. It says he further told the detectives that the post threatening Omar’s life was “just… a statement,” and that he didn’t “have the means to carry it out.”
“Adam stated that he was legally blind and didn’t have any weapons,” according to the affidavit. “Adam was asked about the photo of the AR-styled rifle and stated that it was a friend's that lived in Shefford County, but he did not own a firearm.”
However, Osborn’s behavior during the interview seemed unusually aggressive toward Omar, describing her using ugly, racially insensitive language and profanity, and suggesting she needed “something” done to her, the affidavit contends. It says Osborn also lashed out about New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is also Muslim, telling the detectives that “someone” needed to eliminate him.
One of the detectives told Osborn that “his words sounded like he wanted Ilhan Omar and Mayor Mamdani killed,” according to the affidavit.
“Adam stated that he ‘wouldn’t mind if they were killed,’” the affidavit says. “When asked if Adam wanted to kill them himself he stated that he “doesn’t have the means.’ Adam stated that he had no means of transport by land vehicle and wouldn’t be able to make it to an airport.”
But, Osborn told the detectives, he posted such things to “maybe provoke someone to handle business,” according to the affidavit. “Adam stated that by ‘handle business’ he means to ‘take ‘em out.’ Adam stated that by ‘take ‘em out’ he means to ‘kill them.’”
Other posts on Osborn’s Facebook page, which go unmentioned in charging documents, include one offering a “$10,000 bounty on Gavin Newsom’s head,” another instructing Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan to “watch [her] back,” and an additional threat to Omar, saying, “Ilhan Omar/you’re dead!” (Trump has attacked Newsom, the Democratic governor of California, as “Gavin Newscum,” and has demanded Tlaib, who was born in Michigan, “go back” to where she came from.)
Osborn is facing one count of interstate communications with a threat to injure, which carries up to five years in prison, along with one count of influencing, impeding and retaliating against a federal official by threatening, which carries up to 10 years.
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