How Duggan's Former Mistress Created Abdul El-Sayed
Sonia Hassan helped bring him into Detroit government, and an anti-Israel publisher helped him get a job in Wayne County
By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff
The Democrat Big Three—Jocelyn Benson, Abdul El-Sayed, and Eli Savit—present themselves as something new in the world of Michigan politics.
What they really are is the newest generation of the old, corrupt Wayne County Machine. A ship skippered by Mike Duggan, the former mayor of Detroit who had a grand jury follow him wherever he went.
It was Duggan, in fact, who set the three Democratic nominees’ political careers in motion. It began in 2015 when Duggan and his then mistress, Dr. Sonia Hassan, had a lunch interview with the little-known El-Sayed, according to a former El-Sayed aide. The mistress was impressed with the young man. He talked smoothly, had an Ivy League education, and they were both of Egyptian heritage. With no real-world experience and no medical license, El-Sayed, then only 30, was made Detroit’s health director.
To return the favor, El-Sayed’s department funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars of the bankrupt city’s money into Hassan’s nonprofit.
After just 16 months, El-Sayed resigned. Soon after, the mistress scandal exploded. That’s when Duggan’s chief development officer, Ryan Friedrichs, ordered City Hall staff to destroy evidence.
Friedrichs came to Duggan by way of billionaire developer Stephen Ross, as the two negotiated a massive real-estate deal in the city. Ross was the power behind little-known Jocelyn Benson, who was made dean of the Wayne State Law School. In return, Duggan hired Benson’s husband—Ryan Friedrichs—to negotiate with Ross.
Friedrichs went on to work for Ross as a lobbyist for the monster AI data center in Saline Township that nobody there seems to want. Benson went on to become secretary of state, and now candidate for governor. Benson claims she will not make a dime on the data-center debacle—an untruth.
Duggan’s senior legal counsel at the time of the mistress scandal was Eli Savit, who tried to get the Detroit Inspector General to bury her conclusions in the investigation, writing: “The draft findings threaten to impose severe, unwarranted damage to the reputation of several public servants—and further threaten to stymie effective governance in the City of Detroit.”
The inspector general refused to alter her findings.
Not to worry, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel—another Duggan sycophant from their days in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office—made the scandal disappear.
Savit now hopes to replace her as attorney general.
El-Sayed also disappeared for a few years and resurfaced in 2023 as the new director of the Wayne County Health Department—again with no medical license and little real-world experience.
He was appointed by County CEO Warren Evans, another longtime Duggan protege. El-Sayed was introduced by his patron Osama Siblani, a Dearborn-based political rainmaker who raises obscene amounts of money for Evans.
For his part, the Lebanese-born Siblani considers Hezbollah and Hamas, known terror groups, to be freedom fighters. Despite withering criticism this election season, Siblani stands by his words.
“I mean what I say,” Siblani told me by telephone. “And I won’t back away from that.”
That’s more than you can say about El-Sayed. He deleted years of crazy social media posts in the run-up to his campaign announcement. For instance, El-Sayed used to advocate for defunding the police. Now he says the opposite.
Are we getting something new with this new generation of Michigan Democrats? Hardly. What we’re getting is something old, something borrowed, something tired, but nothing new.
LEAKED: Footage of Abdul El-Sayed fundraising last night in the California home of the far-left Soros family.
Abdul’s education was paid for by the Soros family and NOW they are funding his campaign to make him a U.S. Senator
The Soros family is funding Abdul because he will carry out their agenda of:
➡️ defunding the police
➡️ emptying prisons, and letting violent criminals & sex offenders back onto the streets
➡️ gender transition surgeries for minors
➡️ allowing illegals to vote in American elections
Abdul is too extreme for Michigan.
I really needed to see your post today. I am sitting the ER right now with my adult daughter. It made me pause to think of my other 2 kids. They never ask for anything and I feel like a ghost mom to them. You are right when one child fights their disease the whole family does too. I will make a point to see them too!! God Bless you and your family.
Pray for my daughter’s anxiety to ease while we wait for her brain surgery appt in October. She is having panic attacks because of fear. Pray for her husband, father and I who are her caretakers. Her children miss their mommy too. Thank you for the gift of prayer that you are offering everyone.
@jxcxbrxss@EWErickson What a beautiful tribute to your Pops! I envisioned it all in my mind as I read. He sounded like the best ever! Hold on to those memories!
Spare me your fake outrage. There’s nothing real about you.
Prove me wrong:
Disavow Hasan Piker.
Disavow the DSA.
Disavow the terrorist sympathizers who chant death to America and death to Israel right now.
Disavow those who would burn the flag that I wore into combat to defend your right to LIE about my record.
You haven’t and you won’t so where’s the lie?
You don’t get to abet extremism, run on someone else’s service and then cry foul when you get called out for your cowardice and gaslighting for the first time in your life.
Stop hiding behind your computer screen (while in Kentucky) and accept the October 7th debate in Detroit with Chuck Stokes on @wxyzdetroit.
Extremism will not be tolerated in Michigan when I’m Governor.
Leaders who both refuse to call it out and who have funded the KKK are utterly unfit to serve the people the state of Michigan.
Resign.
🚨 MICHIGAN just got hit with a nuclear ad.
Abdul El-Sayed spent the primary hugging up with Hasan Piker, the same streamer who said America deserved 9/11.
Now that ad is out. On the week we remember 3,000 murdered Americans.
You don’t get to play footsie with that crowd and then act shocked when voters notice.
This isn’t “gotcha politics.” This is a character test.
Mike Rogers hunted terrorists. El-Sayed built a coalition with people who mock the dead.
Michigan cannot send this man to the U.S. Senate.
ELECT MIKE ROGERS!
If you’re a Democrat who still believes this country is worth defending, this race is your wake-up call.
Abdul El-Sayed, four days before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:
“9/11 scarred our country in profound ways, but what we did after 9/11 scarred millions of other people.”
“When we talk about 9/11, we often fail to center them.”
“Them” isn’t the firefighters who buried their brothers and then spent years in chemo, the people who jumped to their deaths, or the families who still can’t bury their loved ones. Abdul thinks it’s cool to demote the dead.