Michigan Democrat Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has meticulously crafted a campaign trail persona that deliberately erases his birth mother's documented links to terror organizations, instead opting to highlight his white stepmother. This calculated narrative, however, crumbles under scrutiny, revealing a deeply troubling pattern of obfuscation from a candidate vying for a seat in the U.S. Senate.
El-Sayed's biological mother, Fatten Elkomy, 66, a psychiatric nurse born in Alexandria, Egypt, previously worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA). The IARA is not just any organization; it was designated a terrorist organization by the Treasury Department in 2004, accused of funneling "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to Osama Bin Laden before 9/11, and directly funding Al Qaeda and Hamas. Federal court documents from 2010 named Elkomy 14 times, detailing her involvement in eight wire transfers to the Middle East.
Adding to the disturbing connections, Elkomy was an activist with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt during the 1970s. This fact was proudly shared by El-Sayed's own half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, in a 2012 social media post, stating, "Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect." She further confirmed, "my family has long been MB." The Egyptian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a terror-designated Islamist political movement seeking to establish sharia rule, was itself designated a foreign terror group by the State Department earlier this year.
Yet, for public consumption, the campaign strategically spotlights his white stepmother, Jacqueline Johnson, 63, a Lansing-born mechanical engineer, and her parents. These step-grandparents were prominently featured in two key campaign videos, even used for fundraising appeals. "Where did Abdul El-Sayed come from? Here!" his step-grandmother Judy Johnson exclaims in one ad, emphasizing their American "roots trace back to the early 1800s." This, apparently, is far more "palatable to Michigan voters" than the truth.
When confronted by NBC Nightly News on his family's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, El-Sayed insisted, "I wasn’t raised by my mother." He then accused his critics of Islamophobia, dismissing evidence from his own sister's social media as "hearsay" and "not serious." Visibly agitated, he continued, "Are you insinuating that somehow I was lying? I’m telling you I was not." He even went so far as to cry racism during a campaign stop, lamenting, "I’m not supposed to run for office, I know that, alright? I got the wrong name for that."
However, El-Sayed's denials are completely undermined by his own actions. Despite claiming he wasn't raised by her, he has remained intimately involved in his birth mother's life. He attended her 2014 graduation from Columbia University's Medical School, where they were photographed beaming together. In his 2020 book, "Healing Politics," he lovingly described his birth mother as "loving" and "devoted," praising her "uncompromising . . . way of doing things." And just this past Mother's Day, he posted about calling her, deliberately referring to her only by her first name, yet concluding with, "Love you, Mama." Funny how that always seems to happen in one direction.
The contrast couldn't be starker: while his birth mother's image and name are carefully omitted from public campaign materials – save for a vague reference as a "psychiatric nurse practitioner" without identification – his white stepmother's hijab is meticulously hidden under a large straw hat in a campaign video, seemingly to soften her image for a broader audience.
This isn't El-Sayed's only act of political chameleonship. He has also "bent over backwards to shed the socialist label," adamantly claiming to be a "capitalist" despite high-profile endorsements from socialist stalwarts like Sen. Bernie Sanders and "Squad" Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pledged a million dollars to his campaign and joined him at three Michigan events just this week. The truth, it seems, is merely a suggestion for the progressive left.
RNC Spokesman Hunter Lovell minced no words, stating, "Abdul El-Sayed has taken pains to hide his own terrorist-connected mother from public view because he knows her ties to Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Hamas are indefensible. If El-Sayed can’t be honest about his family’s troubling ties to terrorism, how can Michiganders trust him to have their best interests at heart?"
Further raising alarms, El-Sayed signed a 2012 open letter urging the Muslim Brotherhood to "purge" the press and police after the radical group seized control of Egypt, as reported by the Washington Free Beacon. Kyle Shideler, Director of Homeland Security and Counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, noted that El-Sayed's "organizational connections, his family connections, his background is consistent with what one would expect from somebody with close ties to the Muslim Brotherhood." He emphasized the Brotherhood's familial nature and strategy of intermarriage, concluding unequivocally: "He's a Muslim Brotherhood guy, 100%."
President Trump himself delivered a scathing assessment. "He's a Muslim Brotherhood guy, 100%," Trump declared from the White House Rose Garden. "How about having him be on the Senate Intelligence Committee? How about that? The guy's 100% Muslim Brotherhood. . . . He's a fraud. He's a con man."
Mariam Wahba, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and an expert on the movement, highlighted that the Muslim Brotherhood "operates through a wider ecosystem of sympathizers, political allies, and individuals who share its worldview without necessarily holding an official position or carrying a membership card." This explains the careful omissions and the frantic denials.
Shideler further elaborated on the Muslim Brotherhood's nefarious objectives: "The Brotherhood wants to position itself as the leaders of Muslim Americans, which in turn gives them political power. It wants to prevent Muslim Americans from assimilating into American culture." Its ultimate goal, he warns, is to "impose Islamic law on all nations everywhere and establish a caliphate." For a candidate with such deeply troubling ties to attempt to mislead American voters, especially while campaigning for a sensitive role in the U.S. Senate, poses a grave national security concern and a direct affront to the integrity of our political system. Michigan voters deserve honesty, transparency, and leaders who unequivocally put America First, not those who attempt to conceal radical ideologies from their past.
