Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed collected over $115,000 from CAIR-linked donors, FEC review finds

Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed built his campaign on getting money out of politics, but federal records show more than $115,000 of his war chest came from donors tied to a group that multiple governments have labeled a terrorist organization.

A Fox News Digital review of Federal Election Commission records identified at least 41 individuals who work for, formerly worked for, or have held leadership roles with the Council on American-Islamic Relations, better known as CAIR, among the donors to El-Sayed's campaign. The contributions came from CAIR-affiliated figures spread across at least nine states, including California, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Washington, and Michigan.

El-Sayed won the Michigan Democratic Senate primary Tuesday night, defeating Rep. Haley Stevens. He now faces Republican Mike Rogers in November. The flood of CAIR-connected money raises pointed questions about who is bankrolling his candidacy, and whether voters in Michigan know the full picture.

CAIR's terrorism ties span federal courts, foreign governments, and two U.S. states

CAIR is not a fringe outfit. It is one of the most prominent Muslim advocacy organizations in the country. But its institutional history carries a trail of formal designations and legal entanglements that no amount of public-relations work has fully erased.

In 2007, federal prosecutors named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in U.S. history. CAIR was never charged with a crime in connection with that case, and the organization has disputed its inclusion. But the designation remains on the record.

The United Arab Emirates designated CAIR a terrorist organization in 2014, a step widely understood to reflect the UAE's assessment that CAIR maintains ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Florida and Texas have also formally designated or labeled CAIR a terrorist organization, though the specific dates and legal mechanisms behind those actions were not detailed in the FEC review.

CAIR has pushed back against these characterizations. In response to Fox News Digital, the organization pointed to its "Dispelling Rumors About CAIR" webpage and a memorandum stating it has "repeatedly condemned antisemitism throughout our 30 years of existence" and "for decades" condemned terrorist attacks by Hamas and other designated terrorist groups. A 2009 CAIR statement put it in plain terms:

"We unequivocally condemn all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa'ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the US Department of State as a 'Foreign Terrorist Organization.'"

A CAIR National Board statement from April 2025 also condemned antisemitism and the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Words are easy. The donor list tells a different story about the organization's political priorities.

Nihad Awad donated under a different name, and cheered Hamas's October 7 breakout

Among the most notable names in the FEC records is Nihad Awad, CAIR's national executive director. Awad appeared in the filings under the name "Nehad Hammad." The reason for the discrepancy was not explained.

Awad drew national condemnation after saying he was "happy" to see Hamas break out of Gaza on October 7, 2023, the deadliest day for Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. He also argued that Israel "does not have the right to self-defense" as an occupying power. Months later, in a December 2023 editorial for Religion News Service, Awad wrote that he agreed with CAIR's condemnation of attacks on civilians.

The gap between those two positions, celebrating a mass-casualty terrorist attack and then claiming to oppose attacks on civilians, is the kind of contradiction that voters deserve to weigh for themselves. El-Sayed's campaign accepted Awad's money regardless. Fox News Digital reached out to the El-Sayed campaign for comment. No response was reported.

Democrats in the Senate have occasionally shown a willingness to break with their party's drift on Israel. Sen. John Fetterman, for example, has drawn sharp lines on the issue, warning he could walk away from Democrats over the question. El-Sayed's donor base suggests he would be heading in the opposite direction.

El-Sayed's father-in-law sits on CAIR's board and bankrolled his super PAC

The CAIR connections run closer than arm's-length donors. El-Sayed's own father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb, is a CAIR-Michigan board member and one of the largest financial backers of a super PAC supporting El-Sayed's Senate bid. The super PAC's name and the exact dollar amount of Tayeb's contributions were not disclosed in the FEC review.

Tayeb's organizational ties extend beyond CAIR. He is part of the founding committee of the Islamic Society of North America, a group that the Washington Free Beacon has reported is linked to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood funding. That characterization is an allegation, not a settled legal finding, but it adds another layer to the financial web surrounding El-Sayed's campaign.

The super PAC's operations have already attracted outside scrutiny. The Washington Examiner reported that Peter Sarasohn, a former Bernie Sanders budget director, was simultaneously serving as treasurer of both Maine Senate Democrat Troy Jackson's campaign and the Fighting for Michigan super PAC supporting El-Sayed. Jackson's campaign quietly replaced Sarasohn as treasurer hours after the Examiner began asking questions about the dual roles, a filing time-stamped 4:05 p.m. on the same day as the inquiry. An FEC spokesperson noted that electronic documents typically appear on the agency's filings page "almost immediately," undermining any claim that the swap was unrelated to the press inquiry.

That kind of scramble, a sudden paperwork change the moment a reporter starts digging, is a pattern familiar to anyone who watches scandal-plagued Democratic campaigns try to clean up before the public notices.

CAIR's national leadership lined up behind one candidate

The donor list reads like a CAIR organizational chart. Beyond Awad, the FEC records show contributions from Manal Fakhoury, CAIR's national board chair; Eyas Abdeen, the national board treasurer; Emad Sabbah, the national vice chair; and Roula Allouch, a former national board chair. CAIR-Michigan board member Muzammil Ahmed alone contributed $11,600.

On the state level, CAIR-California's governance board was well represented. Rubina Alvi, the board's treasurer; Asaad Traina, its chair; and board members Atef Ibrahim and Dina Ezzeddine all appear in El-Sayed's FEC filings. The donations stretched from coast to coast, a coordinated financial effort from an organization's leadership, not a handful of coincidental individual gifts.

For a candidate who has made "getting money out of politics" a central campaign rallying cry, the irony is hard to miss. El-Sayed built his brand on grassroots authenticity. But more than $115,000 from a single organization's orbit, one with unindicted co-conspirator status in a terrorism financing case, does not look like small-dollar populism.

El-Sayed's record on radical Islam and Israel raises its own questions

The donor connections do not exist in a vacuum. El-Sayed's own public record offers context for why CAIR's leadership might view him as a worthwhile investment.

In 2022, El-Sayed appeared at a CAIR event and was paid for a speaking engagement. At that event, he criticized Oklahoma's ban on Sharia law and compared it to the Trail of Tears, a comparison that equated a state legislature's decision about religious legal codes with one of the most devastating forced relocations in American history. The Washington Free Beacon first reported those remarks.

El-Sayed has also campaigned with Hasan Piker, a left-wing online streamer. Democrats aligning with radical online personalities and then scrambling to explain the association has become a recurring pattern in recent cycles. El-Sayed, so far, has not distanced himself.

When Iran's supreme leader died, El-Sayed declined to comment, citing "constituents in Dearborn who were mourning." Dearborn, Michigan, is home to one of the largest Arab-American communities in the country. Sensitivity to constituents is one thing. Silence on the death of a theocratic dictator who funded terrorism across the Middle East is another.

El-Sayed's response to an attack targeting a Detroit synagogue was also referenced in the FEC review, though the specific details of that incident and his reaction were not fully described. The broader pattern, CAIR event appearances, paid speaking engagements, refusal to comment on hostile foreign leaders, and now six figures in donations from CAIR's leadership, paints a picture that Michigan voters will need to examine closely before November.

Democrats have shown a growing comfort with candidates whose backgrounds and associations would have been disqualifying a decade ago. Whether it is embarrassing personal histories or institutional ties to organizations flagged in federal terrorism cases, the party's vetting process appears to have no floor.

Michigan voters face a clear choice in November

El-Sayed will square off against Republican Mike Rogers, a former congressman, in the general election. Rogers brings a national-security background to the race. El-Sayed brings a donor list that includes the executive director of an organization named in the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history, a man who said he was "happy" about October 7.

CAIR can point to its 2009 statement condemning terrorism and its 2025 board letter condemning the October 7 attacks. But formal denunciations issued years after the fact do not erase the FEC records, the unindicted co-conspirator designation, or the foreign terrorism labels from the UAE, Florida, and Texas. And they do not explain why the organization's national leadership, chair, treasurer, vice chair, executive director, all directed money to the same Michigan Senate candidate.

El-Sayed's campaign has not answered questions about the donations. That silence may work in a primary. In a general election, Michigan voters tend to expect answers, especially when the questions involve $115,000 and the word "terrorism" keeps showing up in the same sentence.

A candidate who says he wants money out of politics should probably start by explaining the money already in his.