Michigan’s high-stakes Senate race exploded when Republican Mike Rogers turned a debate over surveillance into a direct confrontation with Democrat Abdul El-Sayed over his family’s connection to a federally designated relief network.

Rogers pointed to El-Sayed’s biological mother’s former employment with the Islamic American Relief Agency. The clash got personal in a hurry.

Here is the exchange that lit up the debate:

El-Sayed accused Rogers of going after his mother. Rogers answered that he was targeting the organization where she worked, then contrasted her employer with his own mother’s job at a local chamber of commerce.

Fatten Elkomy held a role at the Islamic American Relief Agency, commonly known as IARA-USA. The group was the American office of a wider international network.

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El-Sayed challenged Rogers to say exactly what he had been hinting at. Rogers answered with the accusation about IARA, and the moderator then gave El-Sayed time to respond before moving the debate forward.

The federal record behind Rogers’ attack is serious, although it demands precision about who did what.

In October 2004, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated the worldwide Islamic African Relief Agency network and five senior officials under Executive Order 13224. The action blocked the network’s U.S. funds and made providing money or support to its offices a crime.

Treasury listed Islamic American Relief Agency as one of the network’s aliases. The department said international IARA offices provided direct financial support to Osama bin Laden and that overseas branches sent him hundreds of thousands of dollars in 1999.

The federal notice also described IARA’s cooperation with an institute controlled by bin Laden that assisted Taliban fighters. Treasury separately accused the network of serving as a conduit to Hamas in Western Europe and of supporting Al-Ittihad Al-Islamiya.

That designation came near the end of Elkomy’s reported employment period. It gives Rogers’ attack a documentary foundation, even though it does not establish her personal knowledge or intent.

Years later, the U.S. Department of Justice secured IARA’s guilty plea to sanctions violations involving nearly $1.4 million transferred to Iraq. The organization also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and obstruction of tax administration.

The case grew out of a lengthy federal investigation into the Missouri-based U.S. office. Prosecutors said the group moved money to Iraq while sanctions were in force and then worked to conceal its conduct from federal authorities.

An earlier superseding indictment had charged IARA and several former officers with prohibited transactions for the benefit of U.S.-designated terrorist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. That charging document also accused participants of hiding unlawful acts through false and misleading statements.

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The guilty plea established crimes by the organization. It did not turn every employee into a participant in those crimes, and the public federal record reviewed here does not show Elkomy was charged.

Those federal actions concern the organization and its network. They do not establish that Elkomy participated in terrorism financing, and she was not charged with a crime in the records reviewed for this article.

That distinction deserves to be stated plainly. So does the documented employment connection Rogers put before Michigan voters on live television.

WLT Report previously examined the court exhibits that place Elkomy’s name on IARA correspondence and transfer paperwork. One exhibit description identifies a December 2000 transfer request for roughly $24,600 to the organization’s Iraq office.

Other entries describe correspondence involving sponsorship money for orphans and refugees in Jordan and Iraq. Her name also appears in descriptions of recorded calls and internal letters from the same period.

Those records establish that she worked with the organization and handled financial paperwork. The entries described in the federal exhibit list do not say that she sent money to al-Qaeda, Hamas or the Taliban.

That is the line between the documented connection and a claim the evidence does not support. Michigan voters can judge the connection without being told that employment alone proves criminal guilt.

Rogers widened the attack beyond El-Sayed’s mother. He accused the Democrat of accepting support from people and groups tied to radical causes, then called him a con man who should be kept away from the U.S. Senate.

Rogers’ campaign posted this broader cut from the debate:

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El-Sayed answered by attacking Rogers’ record, campaign donors and personal wealth. He repeatedly tried to steer the exchange back toward health care and household costs.

The candidates talked over each other so often that moderator Rick Albin said he wanted to be part of the debate too. According to the full debate video collected by RealClearPolitics, the arguing continued during a commercial break.

The hourlong meeting covered health care, gas prices, trade, immigration, Israel and Iran. It was the first direct debate between the two men in a race for the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters.

Rogers cast El-Sayed as a radical whose proposals would cost Michigan families. El-Sayed tried to present Rogers as a creature of corporate donors and a rubber stamp for President Trump’s agenda.

The personal attacks kept breaking through the policy discussion. Rogers called El-Sayed a con man, while El-Sayed attacked Rogers’ wealth and accused him of caring more about his opponent than Michigan voters.

The foreign-policy exchange proved especially damaging because it forced El-Sayed to choose between two countries at the center of America’s security debate. He rejected the premise instead of naming Iran.

The foreign-policy portion created another brutal moment for El-Sayed. Asked whether Iran or Israel posed the greater danger to the United States, he rejected the choice and said both countries had proved dangerous in different ways.

That answer produced immediate backlash:

This race carries national consequences. The candidates are fighting for the open seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, and control of the Senate could run straight through Michigan.

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Rogers spent years in the FBI and later chaired the House Intelligence Committee. On this stage, he used that background to force a question El-Sayed would rather leave in the past.

The evidence does not make El-Sayed or his mother responsible for IARA’s crimes. It does explain why Rogers believes the connection belongs in front of every Michigan voter before Election Day.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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