Former Michigan Democratic Party chair Lon Johnson blasted Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign after its website edited a statement on a synagogue terror attack into apparent support, with no response.
Lon Johnson, who led the Michigan Democratic Party through 2015, went public Monday over a transcript on Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign site that stripped key words from El-Sayed’s own video remarks about the March 12 attack on Temple Israel.
The video condemned the assault. The website version, left online for months, read as if the candidate endorsed it. Johnson says he pressed the campaign last month for answers and got none.
The Washington Free Beacon reported the gap between the spoken record and the posted text, and the silence that followed Johnson’s outreach.
After Ayman Ghazali rammed a pickup truck into Temple Israel, El-Sayed released a video-recorded statement. The words were plain.
El-Sayed said in the video:
"Ayman Ghazali hurt people. There is no justification for what he did. It was wrong and he never should have done it. Hurt people. Hurt people,"
On the campaign website, the transcript of that same statement dropped two words, “wrong” and “never.” What remained flipped the meaning.
The site version, which stayed up until last month, read:
"It was and he should have done it. Hurt people. Hurt people,"
An archived copy of the page preserved the altered line. Johnson contacted the campaign about it. He asked who controlled the page, whether anyone looked into the change, and whether anyone faced discipline.
Johnson described the reply he received:
"No response,"
He does not claim El-Sayed authored the edit. He does claim the campaign owns the silence.
Johnson said:
"I don’t believe Abdul wrote it or agrees with it,"
He added:
"But having worked on dozens of campaigns, I know how tightly website access is controlled."
On March 12, Ghazali drove a pickup loaded with commercial-grade fireworks and gasoline into Temple Israel. Dozens of small children were inside. The truck stuck and went up in flames. Ghazali died of a self-inflicted gunshot. No one else died.
The FBI called the incident “a Hezbollah-inspired act of terrorism.” One week earlier, an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon killed Ghazali’s brothers, Hezbollah members, and two of one brother’s children. Ghazali had attended a March 8 vigil for those family members at the Islamic Institute of America in Dearborn Heights.
That is the attack the campaign website’s transcript treated as something Ghazali “should have done.”
The website problem does not stand alone. Mariam Odeh, a former El-Sayed campaign aide who worked from February through mid-April, was indicted in June on federal terrorism charges for threatening Jewish people at the University of Michigan.
Voters already weighing El-Sayed’s record on police power now face a second layer: who staffed the campaign, who touched the website, and who answers for either.
Johnson’s point is operational, not theological. Campaign websites are locked down. Logins are limited. Content does not note itself. A transcript that erases “wrong” and “never” is a choice someone made, or a failure someone allowed.
Hassan Qazwini, head of the Islamic Institute of America, said he greeted Ghazali at the March 8 vigil. In a February 2025 sermon, Qazwini praised slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah as a hero of the “resistance” and said Nasrallah’s death would be “fuel to sustain the resistance against Israel.”
In June, El-Sayed spoke at the mosque’s grand opening and offered “hearty congratulations” to Qazwini. In July, Qazwini urged followers to vote for El-Sayed to “deal the Zionist a blow.”
That same race has already put El-Sayed’s Israel and Iran framing under a hard light. Aligning with a cleric who treats Hezbollah’s dead leader as fuel for “resistance” is not a side note in a Senate contest. It is a signal.
El-Sayed has also campaigned with socialist influencer Hasan Piker, who said “America deserved 9/11.” Some Jewish Democrats have said they will back Republican Mike Rogers or sit out rather than support El-Sayed, citing concerns about affiliations with groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Johnson’s complaint is simple enough for any voter to test. The candidate’s video used clear condemnation. The campaign’s own site removed the words that made that condemnation real. The former state party chair asked basic process questions. The campaign gave him nothing.
In a high-profile Michigan Senate race, that pattern matters more than spin. Website control is not a mystery. Staff access is not a rumor. A transcript that turns “never should have done it” into “should have done it” is not a typo that lingers for months by accident.
Readers tracking El-Sayed’s campaign messaging already know the candidate prefers careful phrasing when identity and power come up. Careful phrasing is the opposite of what his site posted about a truck attack on a synagogue full of children.
Background questions keep stacking. Reporting on family posts about Muslim Brotherhood ties has circulated alongside fights over professional claims, including how El-Sayed presents his medical credentials. None of that excuses a campaign site that soft-pedaled terror for months.
Johnson waited for an internal accounting, who had the keys, who made the change, who got held to account. He is still waiting. Michigan voters should not have to.
When a campaign cannot explain how “wrong” and “never” vanished from a statement on synagogue terror, it is not a web glitch. It is a character test the campaign is failing in public.
