Can Abdul El-Sayed be trusted with intelligence community secrets?

If El-Sayed were applying to a position requiring a security clearance, his associations would already raise red flags.

By Michael Rubin, Middle East Forum

One of the most watched of November’s midterm elections will be the Michigan U.S. Senate race in which far-left Democratic nominee Abdul el Sayed challenges former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers. The race remains a toss-up.

Much of the punditry so far has focused on el-Sayed’s Arab heritage, U.S. foreign policy toward Israel, and el-Sayed’s unforced error mocking Mackinac Island, a cultural pride for many Michiganders.

These discussions may miss a far more important point.

While senators do not receive formal security clearances, by tradition, they receive access to national security information because they are deemed trustworthy to handle it.

If El-Sayed were applying to a position requiring a security clearance, his associations would already raise red flags.

El Sayed’s mother, for example, worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency, a group that the U.S. Treasury Department designated as a terrorist entity for supporting Osama bin Laden and Hamas.

While a son should not necessarily be considered guilty for the sins of his mother, the FBI has seen this pattern before.

The mother of President Joe Biden’s envoy, Rob Malley, earlier worked for an Algerian terrorist group and immersed herself and her son in radical causes; the Biden administration subsequently suspended Malley’s clearance on suspicion that he shared vital classified information with proxies for the Islamic Republic of Iran.

El Sayed’s campaign also reportedly received donations from Mohamed Soltan, an alleged Muslim Brotherhood activist sentenced to life in prison by an Egyptian court but released after pressure from the Obama administration.

El Sayed faces further criticism for his friendliness with firebrand influencer Hasan Piker, who has supported Hamas over Israel and engaged in open antisemitic vitriol against Jewish Americans.

El Sayed has also taken more than $100,000 in contributions from the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that often advocates for the Muslim Brotherhood and was declared an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas financing trial.

El Sayed is smart — most Rhodes scholars are, even if they sometimes lack common sense. El Sayed himself will understand all eyes are on him.

The danger is that Democrats may appoint him to key national security-related Senate committees: the Foreign Relations Committee, the Armed Services Committee, or the Select Committee on Intelligence.

This is likely given El-Sayed’s interests and prestige, as well as the demands of his constituency. In such a case, he will have at least one staffer, maybe more, who will also receive security clearance.

This creates a problem: If there is a leak, multiple suspects make resolution unlikely, especially if El-Sayed does not cooperate with what he might call the “persecution” of U.S. law enforcement agencies.

Put another way, an El-Sayed victory could be a one-stop shop for intelligence leakage designed not only to benefit progressives and reward press allies but also to hemorrhage the trust of key allies such as Israel, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Debate must not be criminalized, nor is bigotry—such as what John F. Kennedy faced when he became the first Catholic president—acceptable.

But El-Sayed’s associations merit special scrutiny not because of the positions he takes but because they could become a Trojan horse for terrorist sympathizers, groups, and state sponsors within the U.S. intelligence community.