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.
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. “While Abdul was improving services and making government more efficient for Michigan taxpayers, Mike Rogers was spinning through the revolving door, cashing checks from the same industries he used to regulate in Congress. Mike Rogers repeatedly voted to increase his own salary in Congress before retiring to his Florida mansion as a multimillionaire,” El-Sayed spokeswoman Roxie Richner told the Free Beacon.
El-Sayed’s latest financial disclosure, which covers all of 2025 and the first seven months of 2026, shows that he paid himself a “salary” of $64,000 and took an additional $103,000 as a “member draw” from AME Higher. This is a common strategy used to avoid payroll taxes, because “member draws” from S corporations are not taxed as regular income, accountants told the Free Beacon.
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.
El-Sayed served as director of the Wayne County health department for two years beginning in March 2023. He has touted his work for the Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services on the campaign trail, claiming he “led the rebuild from the studs” of the county’s troubled juvenile prison.
During El-Sayed’s time overseeing the facility, state investigators found the juvenile prison “flooded with sewage and garbage” as well as “dried feces and bodily fluids,” according to government records obtained by the Free Beacon. A 12-year-old detainee was also “viciously beaten and anally gang raped” by a group of fellow inmates who had been left unsupervised by staff. State regulators also revoked the facility’s full operational license and placed it on probation due to widespread health and safety issues.
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