Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed acknowledged his sister-in-law landed on the federal terrorist watchlist under President Obama, after Fox News pressed him with court records.
Fox News senior correspondent Mike Tobin stopped El-Sayed in a hallway Saturday night and put the court paperwork in front of him. The documents name Mariam Jukaku, his sister-in-law, as a plaintiff in a 2016 lawsuit challenging her alleged placement on the Terrorist Screening Dataset, the federal list commonly called the terrorist watchlist.
Tobin asked the straight question. El-Sayed did not dodge it.
“There’s reporting in a lawsuit that now backs it up. And documentation with the lawsuit that Mariam Jukaku, who’s your sister-in-law, that she was on the terrorist watch list?” Tobin said.
"Yeah,"
El-Sayed answered, then rushed to defend her. He said she was on the list during Barack Obama’s presidency and insisted she came off it in 2016. That acknowledgment lands as the Michigan Democrat courts a high-profile boost: Obama is expected to campaign alongside him in Michigan on October 24.
The Breitbart report on the exchange lays out the paper trail Tobin cited and the candidate’s own words. El-Sayed framed the episode as proof the system is broken, not as a family problem he needs to explain.
Court filings described in the reporting say Jukaku claimed she faced extensive airport screening in 2012 and was never told she had been flagged. The 2016 suit challenged that alleged placement. The filing said she was believed removed from the watchlist by 2016, the same year El-Sayed now cites for her exit.
A separate lawsuit seeking damages was dismissed in 2017. In 2021, a federal appeals court overturned a ruling that had favored Jukaku and the other plaintiffs. Fox News reported the watchlist lawsuit does not establish wrongdoing by Jukaku or El-Sayed. That is the record. It is not the clean victory lap the candidate described in the hallway.
El-Sayed still sold it as vindication.
"She did nothing wrong and was captured on that and then sued and got off,"
he said. He went further, turning the scrutiny into an attack on the screening system itself and on his Republican rival.
"You’ve got this system where folks are guilty until proven innocent because they’ve got different kinds of names, because of the infrastructure that people like Mike Rogers set up."
Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate, called the broader family allegations “disqualifying” the same Saturday. Voters can weigh a dismissed damages case, an overturned plaintiffs’ win, and a candidate who says she “sued and won.”
The FBI would not discuss Jukaku’s past or present status. The bureau told Fox News it is U.S. government policy to neither confirm nor deny a person’s inclusion in the Terrorist Screening Dataset. Official silence cuts both ways. It leaves El-Sayed’s removal claim resting on his word and on a filing’s belief, not on a public clearance.
Earlier this fall, El-Sayed faced allegations about his family’s purported connections to the Muslim Brotherhood. The United States and several Middle Eastern countries officially designate the Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. His campaign called those claims “racist and untrue.” That is the same campaign now asking Michigan voters to treat a watchlist history as a paperwork error and move on.
Related reporting has already examined how family posts described long-running Brotherhood ties and how the candidate reacts when those questions return.
The pattern matters because El-Sayed is not a fringe entrant. He is a Democratic Senate hopeful who has drawn national attention and is preparing to share a stage with a former president. Scrutiny of associations, donors, and past praise for Brotherhood-linked figures is not a sideshow in a national-security climate. It is the job interview.
Separate coverage has detailed how donors tied to the Muslim Brotherhood wrote checks to the campaign, and how El-Sayed once praised a Muslim Brotherhood heir barred from the U.S. over terror links. None of that proves Jukaku belonged on a watchlist. All of it explains why a hallway question about court documents was fair game.
Rogers did not mince words. He labeled the allegations disqualifying. El-Sayed’s answer was to blame screening rules and “people like Mike Rogers,” then claim his sister-in-law cleared the process by suing. The appeals court record in 2021 undercuts the simplest version of that story.
Obama’s planned October 24 appearance raises the stakes. A former president whose administration, the reporting notes, apparently placed Jukaku on the list is set to lend his name to the candidate now managing the fallout. Michigan voters get to decide whether that is ironic staging or a closed chapter.
El-Sayed has bristled before when pressed on these themes. Prior reporting captured how the Senate hopeful pushed back on Muslim Brotherhood family claims, and how his record includes casting police in sweeping terms while pushing to curb their authority in earlier Michigan debates over law enforcement power.
The watchlist admission does not need hype. A Senate candidate confirmed a close relative was on the federal terrorist watchlist, said the Obama-era placement ended in 2016, and pivoted to process complaints while a former president prepares to campaign with him. The FBI still will not confirm or deny. The damages case is gone. The 2021 appeals ruling went against the plaintiffs.
Michigan can hear the hallway “yeah” and still demand a fuller accounting before handing anyone a six-year Senate term.
