GOP Attacks El-Sayed on Muslim Brotherhood Ties Amid Tight Michigan Senate Race

Republican Mike Rogers and his allies are drawing attention to statements made by the family of Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, aiming to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization designated as terrorist by several Middle Eastern nations.

El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Michigan's open Senate seat, recently stated on "Meet the Press" that neither he nor his family has any connection to the Islamic group. However, resurfaced social media posts from his half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, a professor at the University of Chicago, appear to contradict this. In a 2012 post, Abdelhadi wrote about having a conversation with her mother about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 1970s.

In subsequent posts from the same year, Abdelhadi also stated, "My family has long been MB, but I’ve always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively." The Washington Free Beacon has reported that El-Sayed served as Abdelhadi’s guardian during her Sharia marriage. The Muslim Brotherhood advocates for Sharia Law and has been designated a terrorist organization by Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia due to its violent offshoots like Hamas. The United States has not designated the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, though it has done so for several of its affiliates.

Rogers, whose campaign has run advertisements linking El-Sayed to extremism, is currently trailing El-Sayed slightly in polls for the race to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). If elected, El-Sayed would be the first Muslim to serve in the U.S. Senate. El-Sayed's campaign has accused Rogers of Islamophobia and of using "bad-faith attacks on Abdul’s faith and family."

"Abdul is a dad and a doctor," an El-Sayed campaign spokesperson told The Post. "He has spent his entire career working to keep Michiganders healthy and safe." The spokesperson added that independent fact-checkers have debunked Rogers' claims and suggested Rogers is attempting to distract from economic issues.

Further scrutiny has focused on El-Sayed's father-in-law, Tayeb Jukaku, a donor to a super PAC supporting El-Sayed. According to the Washington Free Beacon, Jukaku has served on the committee of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an organization that has been linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed's birth mother, Fatten El-Komy, previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, which the Treasury Department designated in 2004 for allegedly funneling resources to al Qaeda and Hamas. El-Komy was not charged with a crime or implicated as a co-conspirator.

During a debate, Rogers reportedly pressed El-Sayed on his family history. A spokesperson for Rogers stated, "Abdul El-Sayed is clearly falling apart. 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 considered one of the most competitive in the country. According to RealClearPolitics, El-Sayed holds a narrow lead over Rogers in aggregated polling. Both former President Barack Obama and former President Donald Trump are expected to campaign in Michigan in the final weeks before the election.