Republican Mike Rogers has provided no evidence that Democrat Abdul El-Sayed “believes that America deserved 9/11,” as Rogers falsely claimed in a statement this month. Instead Rogers’ Senate campaign has pointed to past comments made by a liberal political commentator. El-Sayed said in April that the 2001 terrorist attack on the U.S. was not justified.

Rogers released the statement attacking El-Sayed, who is Muslim, after El-Sayed won the Aug. 4 Democratic primary in the race for Michigan’s open Senate seat. El-Sayed, a former Detroit public health official, will now face Rogers, the Republican nominee and a former congressman, in the general election.

Among other claims, the Aug. 5 statement released by Rogers, an Army veteran who chaired the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said, “I spent years hunting terrorists and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. Never in a million years did I think that I would be running against someone who believes America deserved 9/11.”

The Rogers campaign has not responded to our request for supporting evidence. But the campaign told PolitiFact that the 9/11 claim was based on a video of El-Sayed declining to disavow comments made by Hasan Piker – a popular Twitch streamer who has campaigned with El-Sayed.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee also referenced Piker’s comments in a recent digital ad attacking El-Sayed that says, “When his ally claimed America deserved 9/11, El-Sayed refused to disavow him.”

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