Keep Senator-elect El-Sayed Away from Classified Materials
The Issue
I served as White House Press Secretary, I have held a security clearance for over 20 years, and I’ve spent most of my career in and around government. I know how much rides on the information we entrust to the people we send to Washington. Our nation’s most sensitive intelligence protects our troops, our allies, and our families at home. Access to it is not a perk of winning an election. It is a public trust.
Let me be clear about what this is not. This is not about party, and it is not about faith. Michigan voters elected Abdul El-Sayed, and he will take his seat. Every American has the right to worship as he chooses. But when a public official faces serious, unresolved questions about his associations, those questions must be answered before he is handed the keys to our national security.
On “Meet the Press,” El-Sayed flatly denied that his family has any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet his own half-sister wrote publicly about their mother’s activism in the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States government has since designated the Brotherhood’s Egyptian chapter a terrorist organization for supporting Hamas. And throughout his campaign, El-Sayed chose to stand beside Hasan Piker, a streamer who said America deserved 9/11 and has praised the Houthis, another U.S.-designated terrorist organization. For months, El-Sayed refused to disavow Piker, dismissing the criticism as “cancel culture.”
The American people deserve straight answers. Why did he deny any family ties on national television when his own sister’s posts say otherwise? And will he finally disavow Hasan Piker, clearly and without qualification? Millions of Americans, from soldiers to civil servants, undergo a full background investigation before they see classified information. Senator-elect El-Sayed should voluntarily submit to the same review. Until he does, I am asking Senate leadership to keep him off the Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations Committees and out of classified briefings. Our security is too important to take his word for it.
1,453
The Issue
I served as White House Press Secretary, I have held a security clearance for over 20 years, and I’ve spent most of my career in and around government. I know how much rides on the information we entrust to the people we send to Washington. Our nation’s most sensitive intelligence protects our troops, our allies, and our families at home. Access to it is not a perk of winning an election. It is a public trust.
Let me be clear about what this is not. This is not about party, and it is not about faith. Michigan voters elected Abdul El-Sayed, and he will take his seat. Every American has the right to worship as he chooses. But when a public official faces serious, unresolved questions about his associations, those questions must be answered before he is handed the keys to our national security.
On “Meet the Press,” El-Sayed flatly denied that his family has any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Yet his own half-sister wrote publicly about their mother’s activism in the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States government has since designated the Brotherhood’s Egyptian chapter a terrorist organization for supporting Hamas. And throughout his campaign, El-Sayed chose to stand beside Hasan Piker, a streamer who said America deserved 9/11 and has praised the Houthis, another U.S.-designated terrorist organization. For months, El-Sayed refused to disavow Piker, dismissing the criticism as “cancel culture.”
The American people deserve straight answers. Why did he deny any family ties on national television when his own sister’s posts say otherwise? And will he finally disavow Hasan Piker, clearly and without qualification? Millions of Americans, from soldiers to civil servants, undergo a full background investigation before they see classified information. Senator-elect El-Sayed should voluntarily submit to the same review. Until he does, I am asking Senate leadership to keep him off the Intelligence, Armed Services, and Foreign Relations Committees and out of classified briefings. Our security is too important to take his word for it.
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Petition created on November 9, 2026