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.
