Michigan senator elect Abdul El-Sayed built his campaign around battling Big Pharma and driving money out of politics. Now, the Democrat has selected a former pharmaceutical industry lobbyist to direct his Senate transition, creating an awkward contrast with the image he sold voters.

El-Sayed chose Diana Abdelall, an Egyptian American attorney who worked at the law firm Sidley Austin, to oversee the transition. His allies on the left praised the decision, pointing to her work for the Biden Department of Homeland Security and Kamala Harris's 2024 presidential campaign.

No surprise: Sen-elect Abdul El-Sayed’s first hire is his transition director, Brenda Abdelall, the Egyptian-American attorney who said Zionists are “controlling a lot of” American politics. A classic dual-loyalty/control trope, straight from her 2002 comments — and never meaningfully walked back. She also charged Israel with “ethnic cleansing” and “terrorism.”

El-Sayed’s priorities, clear as day. https://t.co/5jpKWLOMwP — Trisha Posner (@trishaposner) November 6, 2026

Former Bernie Sanders aide Matt Duss called Abdelall a "great pick" who will help El-Sayed "build a strong Senate team." Her lobbying history, however, could draw a less enthusiastic reaction from the liberal base attracted to El-Sayed's health care promises.

Abdelall was registered as a lobbyist at Sidley Austin from 2007 through 2010, according to lobbying records filed with Congress. During that period, she represented Bayer Healthcare, a subsidiary of German pharmaceutical giant Bayer, and Talecris Biotherapeutics, a global maker of drugs derived from plasma.

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Her LinkedIn profile says she drafted compliance programs for "large pharmaceutical manufacturers" and "represented pharmaceutical, biological, and medical device manufacturers in legislative and regulatory matters." That is hardly the obvious resume for leading the transition of a politician who campaigned as Big Pharma's sworn enemy.

Records show the drug companies paid Sidley Austin $8.1 million during Abdelall's tenure. She lobbied the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on matters including "Medicare reimbursement," diabetes drugs, and "Medicaid and Health Care reform," including Obamacare.

Major drug companies can obtain as much as half of their United States revenue from Medicare, with smaller amounts coming from Medicaid and the Department of Veterans Affairs. Getting pharmaceutical companies to charge Medicare less remains a leading priority for supporters of health care reform.

The contrast is especially sharp because El-Sayed's campaign tagline was "money out of politics, money in your pocket, Medicare for All." El-Sayed, an epidemiologist who calls himself a medical doctor despite never having treated patients, has also pledged to block drug companies from using "legal means" to extend patents.

El-Sayed argued that pharmaceutical companies use those practices to maintain high drug prices. "I think we all agree Big Pharma is a big problem," he said during the campaign, a declaration that now sits uneasily beside his transition director's lobbying work.

The Democrat also attacked Republican opponent Mike Rogers as a "Big Pharma sellout." His campaign aired television advertisements falsely claiming Rogers had worked as an industry lobbyist after leaving Congress, but Rogers has never lobbied for drug companies.

El-Sayed withdrew the advertisements after Rogers threatened to sue him over the false claims. He also criticized Rogers for owning a home in Florida, while El-Sayed himself owns property in a "luxury" housing development in the United Arab Emirates.

While Abdelall worked for Bayer Healthcare in 2008, Bayer settled with the Department of Justice for $98 million over allegations that it paid kickbacks to diabetes drug suppliers and forced them to submit false billing claims to Medicare. Talecris also spent heavily to "extend the commercial life" of its products through patent litigation.

That patent strategy resembles the kind of pharmaceutical industry practice El-Sayed condemned on the campaign trail. Bayer and Talecris, like most drugmakers, also lobbied on the Obamacare legislation to obtain favorable arrangements with Congress and the Obama administration that would protect industry profits.

Although El-Sayed's pharmaceutical rhetoric may conflict with Abdelall's professional history, the two hold similar positions regarding Israel. Abdelall is a staunch critic of the Jewish state and said in 2002 that "Zionists" were "controlling" American politics.

Brenda Abdelall will help El-Sayed build out the rest of his Senate staff before his January swearing-in.

She’s an Egyptian-American professor, attorney, and former lobbyist who also served in the Biden Department of Homeland Security and as director of the Kamala Harris campaign’s outreach to Arabs and Muslims in 2024. Years earlier, at an American Muslim Council conference in 2002, she promoted conspiracy theories about Jewish control of world affairs. — Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) November 9, 2026

El-Sayed claimed during the campaign that Israel pushed President Donald Trump into war with Iran. He has also disputed that Israel is a United States ally and equated the country with Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism.

Neither El-Sayed's transition team nor Abdelall responded to requests for comment. For a campaign built around purging pharmaceutical influence from politics, putting a former Big Pharma lobbyist in charge of the transition leaves plenty for El-Sayed's supporters to explain.

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