The man in Minneapolis had criticized Ilhan Omar in public. Then a popular Somali TikTok star posted where to find him.

He says a group caught him, pepper-sprayed him, knocked him to the ground, and kicked and punched him. "I got jumped by 15 people and was pepper-sprayed," he told the New York Post. When his name later showed up in the press, he says he was attacked again, this time outside a restaurant in Kenya.

His offense was talking about Ilhan Omar.

He isn't the only one. Several members of Minnesota's Somali community have described to the Post a pattern of threats, beatings, and pressure aimed at people who speak out about the congresswoman. They live in her community, and some have known her for years. Most are too afraid to give their names.

In one video, a man in Somalia who goes by Aardile claimed he had ordered an attack on one of Omar's critics in Minnesota. After seeing it, the target stayed in bed for a week, afraid he'd be shot.

Another man was told, "You are going to be killed." The caller called him a "snake."

A third critic got a phone call from someone the Post describes as a "leading member" of Minneapolis' Somali community. The Post listened to the seven-minute recording. The caller told the critic to say publicly that he'd lied about Omar, and to post his support for her before the midterms. He refused, and he says he's lived in fear since.

"I feel very threatened for simply disagreeing with anything to do with Ilhan Omar," one man said. He says death wishes arrive every day.

The TikTok star who posted the Minneapolis man's location called him a "fool" and threatened to punch him if he came to Minnesota. In other videos he went after people who, in his words, "snitched on Ilhan Omar" and "went after her father."

His complaint wasn't that the critics lied. It was that they snitched.

Nobody has accused Omar of ordering any of this. The men accused of the threats have no official tie to her campaign. Still, when the Post asked Omar's office about the beatings and death threats against people in her own community, her office didn't respond.

Omar does talk about threats when she's the target. She told the Star Tribune that threats would force her out of her Washington home.

What her critics have been saying is now in front of a federal grand jury.

On October 12, federal agents searched Omar's Washington residence and seized her phone. More than a dozen grand jury subpoenas have gone out, some to her relatives. A Minnesota grand jury is collecting evidence on possible immigration paperwork fraud tied to her 2009 marriage to Ahmed Nur Said Elmi. For years, people have alleged that Elmi is her brother. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin calls it a "large case" involving more than one person. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro says there are "several investigations," including a separate look at Omar's financial disclosures.

Omar calls the marriage allegation "insane." She says the search was "an attempt to target political enemies," the latest chapter in what she describes as a decade-long campaign against her. She hasn't been charged.

On one side, there's a federal investigation run by judges and grand juries. Omar calls that intimidation.

On the other side, men in her community have been pepper-sprayed on a Minneapolis street, chased down in Kenya, told they'll be killed, and pressured to take back what they said before an election. Omar's office still hasn't said a word about any of it.

The man who was beaten in Minneapolis didn't get a statement from his congresswoman.