What do you do when you have a full-time job as a bureaucrat but want to start your campaign for the U.S. Senate? After all, running for Senate is at least a full-time job, and it's hard to do both at once.
Well, if you are Abdul El-Sayed, you work the system. You resign from the job, then sign a "consulting" contract that pays you $300 an hour for 30 hours a week, giving you a nice income as a cushion.
Sayed's job as the Wayne County public health services director was not supposed to be political, so running for office while doing the job is not the same as running for office while in office. His full-time job was running things and keeping them on track, not being the guy who just sets direction and is the public face. He's an employee of the political team.
Abdul El-Sayed Billed County Taxpayers $9,000 a Month in ‘Consulting’ Fees While Running for Senate @alanagoodman @FreeBeacon
— Matthew Continetti (@continetti) October 2, 2026
https://t.co/kJxX8hS1fX
Nobody sane could possibly believe that El-Sayed was sitting down for 30 hours a week helping the transition to the new director. I've worked on two Senate campaigns, and even candidates who get creamed in elections are working 18-hour days, traveling, raising money, plotting strategy, and boning up on all the issues.
Apparently El-Sayed is Superman, or his political masters in Wayne County gave him a sweet and unethical deal.
Michigan's left-wing Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed billed county taxpayers $ 9,000 per month in consulting fees while running for Senate, according to public records obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services approved a contract to hire El-Sayed for "consulting services" on April 23, 2025, six days after El-Sayed announced he was running for Senate.
El-Sayed had previously served as director of the county health services department for two years, a post he resigned from on April 3, 2025.
The contract, which extended through the end of the calendar year, stipulated that El-Sayed would be paid at a monthly rate of $9,000 for 30 hours of work—which amounts to around $ 300 per hour. Wayne County is run by county executive Warren Evans, a Democrat.
Under the agreement, El-Sayed was approved to receive up to $72,000 for eight months of consulting work, in which he would "provide strategic support to the County in efforts to ensure smooth and effective leadership transition and aligning operational priorities with the County's broader vision for public health and human services."
The payments were routed through "AME Higher LLC," an entity created by El-Sayed as a pass-through for his consulting and speaking fees, according to the contract.
And El-Sayed knew how to use his consulting firm to vacuum up the money. Working for Wayne County wasn't his only contract, or even his most lucrative, as a Senate candidate. He apparently was Superman, since he also collected six figures in consulting for a questionable health care firm.
The news comes as El-Sayed has faced questions over his use of a tax loophole to avoid payroll and income taxes on payments he received through AME Higher LLC.
...
The Wayne County contract wasn't El-Sayed’s only consulting gig during his senatorial campaign. He has also collected over $82,000 in consulting fees from One Health Partners, a Chicago-area nonprofit health care company that former employees called a "scam." It focuses on buying medical practices and "exploiting Medicare" to increase revenue, the Free Beacon reported. The company is run by one of El-Sayed's largest campaign donors, Ali Karim, who was sanctioned by Wisconsin regulators for defrauding an investor and has been accused of fraudulent business practices in multiple lawsuits.
That's quite the haul for a guy who runs on socialist-adjacent policies, against "consultants," for tax "fairness," and against profiteering in healthcare.
But when you are leftist, the rules are different. The "vanguard of the proletariat" needs their perks.
UPDATE: I corrected the strikethroughs, which left the error. I think the argument still stands. He hauled in around $200k in consulting while running for Senate.
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