Top Dems brush off ties to Imam who held memorial for Iranian leader who vowed 'Death to America'

FIRST ON FOX: Legacy Democrats and a slew of Michigan Democratic Party lawmakers dismissed concerns over their connections to a radical Imam who eulogized the death of Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei by "the most wretched hands on Earth" and works at a mosque known for being a purveyor of Iranian propaganda. 

In addition to the public photos of Ali Elahi, with a slew of various Democrats, he has also donated to several of these same lawmakers as well, including candidates running for office this year in his state of Michigan, according to Michigan's campaign finance database. Current Michigan U.S. Senate candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, featured in at least one of the Imam's photos, received over $800 from him in 2017. Gilchrest, pictured numerous times with the Imam on his social media pages, received over $1,000. 

Ali Elahi has also, for years, made many small-dollar donations through Act Blue to various Democrats and Democrat institutions.

"The unwillingness of public officials to distance themselves from someone so controversial would be troubling enough under normal circumstances, but doubly so during a time of conflict when Americans' lives hang in the balance and voters expect their leaders to rally around the flag," said GOP strategist Colin Reed. "For nearly 40 years, the leaders of the Iranian regime have pushed 'death to America' and exported terror around the world. It shouldn't be a close call to want to put daylight between someone so sympathetic to their cause."

Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli airstrike last month, has repeatedly attacked the United States and Israel on social media, including saying, "Death to America."

"Yes, it will happen. Death to America will happen," Khamenei declared in 2022, the Middle East Media Research Institute reported at the time. "Some people say: By chanting 'Death to America,' you bring America's animosity upon yourself. I say that this is not true. When America began its hostility towards Iran, nobody had been chanting 'Death to America.'"

"Georgians are concerned about an illegal war that's costing taxpayers $1 billion a day and spiking gas prices," a Warnock spokesperson told Fox News Digital. "The Senator believes Ayatollah Khamenei was a brutal dictator, and this President should be focused on problems at home instead of entangling our country and service members in another endless war."

"It was 60 seconds of social niceties at a funeral. Shaking someone's hand isn't a connection or an endorsement," said a Clinton spokesperson. "They don't know each other."

"In his 12-year tenure, Mayor Duggan constantly reached out to congregations of all faiths, visiting 40-50 churches, mosques, and synagogues each year," a spokesperson for Duggan's gubernatorial campaign said. "He attended close to 1,000 political events in that time and greeted and took photos with people at each of them. The Mayor does not know Imam Elahi any more than the many others across the political spectrum he encountered over the years."

"The numerous photographs of Elahi with high-level Iranian politicians and religious leaders that he regularly publishes on his social media networks speak to his ties to the Islamic Republic," a report from George Washington University's Program on Extremism states. The same report points out that Ali Elahi served as the head of the Iranian Navy's "political ideological office" in 1982, an allegation the Imam addressed but did not deny in a 2023 speech.     

Meanwhile, U.S. lawmakers have accused Ali Elahi's mosque of being "a significant purveyor of extremist propaganda, in line with the Iranian regime's views," in a 2023 letter to then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, calling on him to investigate various Iranian regime-backed mosques in the United States. As recently as 2023, Ali Elahi traveled to Iran, sharing photos and video of his trip in 2023 on social media.