WASHINGTON – Republican Mike Rogers and his allies are calling Democrat Abdul El-Sayed a liar for denying any family ties to the Muslim Brotherhood – and are bringing receipts.
El-Sayed, the Democrat nominee for the open Michigan seat, emphatically told “Meet the Press” over the weekend “no” when asked if he or his family is connected to the Islamic group known for its radical offshoots.
But resurfaced tweets from his half-sister, University of Chicago Professor Eman Abdelhadi, show support for the Muslim Brotherhood. She even claimed her mother was an active member.
“Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect,” Abdelhadi wrote in a 2012 X post, as first reported by the Washington Free Beacon.
“My family has long been MB, but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively,” she later wrote in 2012.
El-Sayed also served as Abdelhadi’s guardian during her Sharia marriage, according to paperwork reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Muslim Brotherhood, which advocates for Sharia Law, has been designated a terrorist organization by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia due to its violent offshoots like Hamas.
Notably, the US has not designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, though Washington has done so for several of its offshoots.
Rogers, whose allies are running ads painting El-Sayed as a Muslim extremist, has been slightly trailing in the polls in the toss-up election race for the seat vacated by retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.)
If he wins, El-Sayed would become the first-ever Muslim elected to the US Senate, and his allies are accusing Rogers of trafficking in Islamophobia.
“Abdul is a dad and a doctor,” the El-Sayed campaign told The Post. “He has spent his entire career working to keep Michiganders healthy and safe.”
“Independent fact-checkers have repeatedly debunked Mike’s lies, but their campaign continues to use bad-faith attacks on Abdul’s faith and family,” the spokesperson added. “Mike wants to distract from Trump’s agenda that is terrorizing Michigan families at the pump and at the grocery store.”
El-Sayed’s family comes from Egypt, and he was previously caught on camera indicating that he’s a dual citizen. The group’s objective in Egypt has been to resist Western influence and re-Islamify the country.
In addition to his half-sister, El-Sayed’s father-in-law Tayeb Jukaku, a contributor to a super PAC backing him, has served on the committee of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, according to the Washington Free Beacon.
El-Sayed’s birth mother, Fatten El-Komy, previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department designated as a terrorist organization in 2004 for funneling resources to al Qaeda and Hamas.
She was never charged with a crime or implicated as a co-conspirator.
During their debate, Rogers repeatedly needled El-Sayed over his family history, but the former public health official opted to go on offense rather than dwell on the accusations.
“Abdul El-Sayed is clearly falling apart,” a Rogers spokesperson told The Post. “He lied about his connections to designated terrorist organizations on national television, and his attempted clean up isn’t going so well.”
“Michiganders deserve to know the truth, and the more they find out, the less they like him.”
The Michigan Senate race is one of the tightest elections in the country, with El-Sayed notching a 2.7 percentage point edge over Rogers in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polling.
The two men have one more debate slated for Oct. 21. Former President Barack Obama as well as President Trump are expected to swing through the state during the midterm home stretch.
