Viral El-Sayed heckler unmasked as son of GOP operative paid $250K to oppose him: report

The man who tried to ambush Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed with a question about the Muslim Brotherhood is the son of a longtime Republican operative whose firm was recently paid $250,000 to campaign against him.The Handbasket first identified the questioner as Thomas “Tommy” Teepell, and The Guardian followed up that reporting by confirming that his father is Timothy “Timmy” Teepell, a longtime strategist for Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and a former chief of staff to ex-Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.At a town hall, the younger Teepell asked El-Sayed whether he would “disavow” the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed said he would, then asked: “What are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?”In the five-minute exchange that followed, El-Sayed pressed Teepell on the Constitution’s guarantee of religious freedom, and a video clip of the encounter has drawn more than 50 million views and become a viral moment for his campaign.A Federal...