What Did Abdul El-Sayed Say After October 7? Wayne County Won’t Let Voters See

Wayne County told Michigan voters they’ll have to wait until after Election Day for a response to a public records request about Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. I’m an independent journalist covering antisemitism, and I wondered what El-Sayed said in his government emails after Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Israeli civilians on Oct. 7, 2023. At the time, he was Wayne County’s health director. His half-sister, Eman Abdelhadi, posted on X that the attackers had “been held in an open prison for 16 years” and were “finally fighting their oppressors. El-Sayed says he disagrees with some of his sister’s views. I wondered: Did he disagree with her about Oct. 7? So on Sept. 18, my colleague asked the county for emails to or from El-Sayed between Oct. 5 and Nov. 1, 2023, containing keywords related to Israel, Gaza, Hamas, and the conflict. The county took a 10-business-day extension to respond, then sent us a bill. We received a letter on Oct. 14, telling us that processing our request would take at least 75 days and cost $757.20. The county also automatically closed our request. So we asked for fewer records: emails sent by El-Sayed, rather than emails to or from him, between Oct. 7 and Oct. 15. We also offered to remove three keywords. The new date range alone was nine days instead of 28. I called to discuss modifying our request, and asked whether the county could expedite it. Instead, the county directed us to submit a new request. Then it took another 10-day extension and set a response deadline of Nov. 6 — three days after the election. The county doesn’t need another extension to look for records it found weeks ago. It would take just a few minutes to filter those search results to the nine days we requested. Wayne County refused to tell us why they couldn’t do that. Instead, county lawyer Kathryn Levasseur-Cousin told us that the health department would respond to our new request within the time allowed by Michigan’s FOIA statute. We could also pay for review of the records retrieved under our first request. Either way, voters are unlikely to see El-Sayed’s Oct. 7 emails before the election. Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act is supposed to give the public access to information about government operations and conduct of government officials. What could be more important than the words of a government official who is asking voters to elevate him to the U.S. Senate? These emails are of particular interest to Jewish voters, many of whom have hesitated to support El-Sayed because of his strident anti-Israel rhetoric. El-Sayed also minimized attacks on Jews in Michigan: When an Islamist terrorist drove a truck into a synagogue preschool and fired shots from an AR-15, El-Sayed remarked that “hurt people hurt people.” Michiganders deserve to see El-Sayed’s emails before they cast their ballots. Wayne County can still change course and release them. It should do so immediately. Anita Kinney is a journalist and attorney. Her work has been featured in City Journal, Forbes, Tablet, and The Wall Street Journal 2026 midtermsAbdul El-SayedantisemitismEman AbdelhadiFOIAFOIA requestGazaHamasIsraelMichiganMidtermsOct. 7October 7terrorismU.S. SenateWayne County