Abdulrahman Mohamed El-Sayed, a Muslim Socialist from Michigan, has received over $25,000 from at least six men who backed a letter advocating for the Muslim Brotherhood and urging a “purge” of media and police in Egypt. This information was reported by the Washington Free Beacon on Thursday.
El-Sayed has encountered significant backlash due to his connections with the Muslim Brotherhood. A recent disclosure involves a 2012 letter where 46 “leaders of the Egyptian community” in the U.S. endorsed a crackdown on Egypt’s media and police shortly after the country’s then-president, Mohamad Morsi, expanded his powers.
“Dr. Abdul Rahman El-Sayed” from New York was the 33rd to sign the letter, which became public around the time he was studying medicine at Columbia University, according to the Free Beacon.
The letter endorsed Morsi’s “revolutionary actions” and criticized dissenting perspectives in America and Europe regarding the new regime.
Dr. Hany Saqr, a collaborator who signed the letter, has financially supported El-Sayed by contributing at least $1,000 to his senate campaign. Saqr is associated with the “Egyptian Association in America” and was previously listed in a 1990s directory of Muslim Brotherhood leaders linked to a federal terror financing case. He referred to Egypt’s current president Abdel el-Sisi as a “dog of the Jews” for opposing the Brotherhood.
Another signer, Ahmed Shehata, defended the Muslim Brotherhood in a 2013 opinion piece for Roll Call and urged the U.S. to restore Morsi. The following year, he criticized initiatives to label the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group.
Shehata, the CEO of Islamic Relief USA, contributed $500 to El-Sayed’s senate campaign and also to his 2018 gubernatorial bid.
Additionally, El-Sayed received contributions from other doctors in Michigan and Texas who studied in Cairo. The largest donor from the signers is Dr. Hesham Gayar, who specializes in oncology at Michigan’s Barbara Ann Karmanos Cancer Institute. He signed the letter as a member of the “Egyptian Foundation” and donated at least $7,000 to El-Sayed’s senate campaign as well as nearly the same amount for his gubernatorial campaign.
During a recent televised debate, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, confronted him about the donations. Rogers questioned El-Sayed’s connections, asking, “So, being bought off by the Muslim Brotherhood, having donors to his campaign from Hamas that support Hezbollah, is not a problem? If you are going to go to the United States Senate, we need to know: Are you for America or are you for these terrorist groups overseas? You can grin, and you can smile, and you can talk real pretty, but I’m going to tell you what, that is a risk to our national security.”
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