Republican opponent Mike Rogers was subsequently pressed by NBC’s Kristen Welker, who noted that while Rogers has attacked El-Sayed over the group, Rogers himself defended the Muslim Brotherhood during the same period. El-Sayed also refused to answer questions on the campaign trail from The Midwesterner about why the 2012 letter urged then-Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi to “purge the media and the police,” and had conservative activist Cam Higby removed after he asked about campaign donations from Muslim Brotherhood members.

The clashes extend a three-week dispute over El-Sayed’s past statements and family ties, following reports that at least six co-signers on the 2012 letter donated more than $25,000 to his campaigns and that his half-sister wrote in 2012 that their family “has long been Muslim Brotherhood.” While El-Sayed disavowed the group at a Michigan town hall, Mother Jones reported that a Republican group paid $250,000 to a strategist’s firm 18 days before the event, where the strategist’s son, former Senate staffer Tommy Teepell, questioned El-Sayed about the Brotherhood.