The campaign for Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has released a bizarre statement after unearthed text messages seemingly contradict his claims denying ties between his family and the Muslim Brotherhood.
El-Sayed is vying to keep the U.S. Senate seat from Michigan under Democratic control, but he has had trouble with some traditional Democrat voters, including Jews, because of his extremism.
'Abdul's family is directly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe one day he will tell Michiganders the truth ... But if not, you can just take his sister's word for it.'
"Can you set the record straight about whether you or your family have any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood?" NBC News' Kristen Welker asked El-Sayed on "Meet the Press" Sunday.
"No, but let's talk about this," came the reply.
Welker jumped in and asked for clarification: "No, you don't have any ties? And your family doesn't?"
El-Sayed responded, "No," to both questions.
A Washington Free Beacon report published that same day documented posts from over a decade ago by El-Sayed's maternal half-sister indicating her family had supported and been involved with the Muslim Brotherhood since at least the early '70s.
"Had an amazing talk with my mom about her activism in the Muslim Brotherhood during the early 70s while she was in college #respect," Eman Abdelhadi wrote in 2012.
"My family has long been MB, but I've always felt that it has navigated the political sphere poorly/destructively," she wrote in another post from the same year.
"Although I lean towards the Leftists; conversations with my #MB family in Egypt revealed respect for individual liberties & secular state," she also wrote in 2012.
In response to the resurfaced posts from Abdelhadi, a spokesperson for El-Sayed issued a statement that did not deny the authenticity of the posts or address the substance of them, vaguely referring to them only as "lies" and Islamophobic "attacks" from Republican Mike Rogers.
"Abdul is a dad and a doctor. He has spent his entire career working to keep Michiganders healthy and safe," reads the statement from El-Sayed campaign spokesperson Roxie Richner to Bill Melugin of Fox News.
"Independent fact checkers have repeatedly debunked Mike's lies, but their campaign continues to use bad faith attacks on Abdul's faith and family. Mike wants to distract from Trump's agenda that is terrorizing Michigan families at the pump and at the grocery store."
The campaign also indicated, according to Melugin, that it considers the Muslim Brotherhood allegations "racist" and "untrue."
The Rogers campaign slammed El-Sayed over the resurfaced posts.
"Facts are facts. Abdul's family is directly tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Maybe one day he will tell Michiganders the truth… But if not, you can just take his sister's word for it," reads a statement posted Tuesday on Rogers' social media account.
Greg Manz, the senior communications adviser of the Michigan GOP, pounced on El-Sayed in a statement sent to Blaze News.
"Beyond being an America-hating terrorist sympathizer funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, Conman Abdul's response to being exposed as having family members in an Egyptian-founded terrorist organization, coupled with the Muslim Brotherhood publicly celebrating his primary victory, suggests that Conman Abdul may, in fact, be a sociopath," Manz wrote.
RELATED: Islamic Society of North America illegally supported Muslim candidate's campaign, congressman says
El-Sayed previously implied that racism was animating the extremist allegations.
"I don't dignify those kinds of claims because, at the end of the day, again, this is about trying to point to somebody whose name is different to make all kinds of hearsay accusations that are just not worth the dignity of a response," he said to reporters after the debate with Rogers Thursday.
El-Sayed and Abdelhadi's birth mother long worked for a group that was later labeled a specially designated global terrorist organization and that may also have helped fund al-Qaeda. She was never charged with any crime.
El-Sayed has a slight lead over Rogers in current polling, which can be tracked via Blaze News' Poll Watch:
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!