Michigan heckler the son of Republican adviser paid for ‘influencer marketing’ against El-Sayed

The man who attempted to ambush the Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed with a question about his supposed allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood – which El-Sayed parlayed into a viral clip for his campaign – is the son of a political operator who recently received $250,000 for “canvassing and influencer marketing” against El-Sayed, the Guardian has learned.

In the now-famous exchange, a man – first identified by the Handbasket as Thomas “Tommy” Teepell – asked El-Sayed if he would “disavow” the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed said he would, but then asked: “What are you implying? Do you assume that I wouldn’t?” What followed was a five-minute exchange that has drawn over 50m views across several social media platforms, in which El-Sayed queries the man about the guarantees of religious freedom in the constitution.

Teepell is the son of Timothy “Timmy” Teepell, a longtime strategist for the Missouri Republican senator Josh Hawley as well as former Republican Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal. Timmy Teepell’s firm, Breakthrough LLC, was paid $250,000 on 29 September by America Next, a 501(c)(4) non-profit with which it shares a Baton Rouge office suite, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

The filing says the money would fund the canvassing and influencer marketing in opposition to El-Sayed. It is the only independent expenditure the group has reported since 2015, when it paid OnMessage Inc for television advertising backing Bobby Jindal’s presidential campaign.

America Next has been trying to gin up “organic” town hall opposition to El-Sayed, as the Handbasket report noted. On 1 October, a member of the University of Michigan College Republicans, saying he was acting for America Next, reportedly offered students $200 to boo and question El-Sayed at a town hall in Flint.

The same Baton Rouge suite is also the registered address of a Christian non-profit for which Teepell is the registered agent, and whose four directors include two other Teepell family members. Hawley’s campaign committee has also paid Breakthrough. (The Handbasket report also outlines the close relationship between Sean Feucht and the elder Teepell.)

Pennsylvania business records list Timmy Teepell as a director of Sean Feucht’s ministry, which owns a townhouse on Capitol Hill in Washington.

Timmy Teepell, Thomas Teepell, America Next and Hawley’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Nothing in the filings shows that Thomas Teepell was paid by Breakthrough or America Next.

Jindal launched America Next as a policy non-profit in 2013, and its website still publishes his columns. The group does not disclose its donors. In the year to July 2024 its tax filings reported $5,066,000 in contributions.

Other groups’ tax filings show where some of the money came from. American Action Network, a group the Guardian has previously described as a dark-money outfit and which is connected to House Republican leaders, gave America Next $500,000 for “issue support” in its tax year ending in June 2022, according to its tax filing for that year. Secure Florida’s Future, a 501(c)(4) based in Tallahassee, gave America Next $250,000 in 2022, according to its own filing.

In 2022, America Next paid OnMessage Inc $5,020,808 for “media services and consulting”, against total expenses of $10,130,638, according to its 990 filing for the year.

America Next has also funded Republican Super Pacs, giving them at least $1,475,000 since 2018, FEC records show.

The ministry’s tax filings do not show when he joined either. Its most recent public return, for 2020, lists three directors: John Feucht, Robert Zoellner and Alvin Chun. It does not mention Timmy Teepell or OnMessage, as RNS reported in 2024. The ministry’s revenue that year was $5,314,148, up from $283,526 in 2019. IRS records now classify Sean Feucht Ministries as a church, a category that is not required to file public returns, and list no return after 2020.

In June 2025, former staffers accused Feucht of “potential financial crimes” and spiritual abuse, and said that “the members of Mr Feucht’s board have potentially failed in their fiduciary duty to exercise appropriate oversight”, as RNS reported.

In a video posted on 11 June 2025, Feucht said “none of those allegations are true”, describing his accusers as “embittered, angry, upset … former volunteers” who “know nothing about our financial situation”. He said: “Every single penny that has been raised that you guys out there have donated has gone to fulfill its kingdom-ordained purpose.”

Separately, a California donor is suing Sean Feucht Ministries in federal court for fraud. The complaint, filed in March, alleges that a $250,000 donation solicited in 2023 for Feucht’s Let Us Worship tour was “diverted, in whole or in part, to other uses controlled by Mr Feucht”. A judge dismissed the original complaint in September, finding that the fraud claims had not been pleaded with enough specificity, but allowed the donor to amend it, and an amended complaint was filed on 30 September. The ministry has argued that the claims are time-barred and barred by the church autonomy doctrine.

Their website testimony named Zoellner as a board member of Sean Feucht Ministries, and alleged that former key employees “were never made aware of their names”. It did not name Timmy Teepell. Feucht did not respond to RNS’s request for comment at the time.

Feucht has prayed in public for the elder Teepell’s political work. Laying hands on Teepell at an event in Florida, Feucht said, “We pray that Timmy would put more revivalists in public office,” according to RNS. A video shows Feucht praying over Teepell and his family. Teepell was also on the bill at Feucht’s “Hold the Line” conference at the Trump International hotel in Washington on 11 September 2021, scheduled to speak on “2022 Forecast and Polling”, according to the event’s listing on Eventbrite, which gives his name as “Timmy Teeple”.

Hawley spoke at Feucht’s Let Us Worship rally on the National Mall in October 2020, according to a Daily Caller video, and afterwards posted that it was a “huge privilege to be on the mall tonight with thousands and thousands of Christians gathered to worship and pray”.

There, Feucht led the crowd in prayer for Hawley, “calling on God to elevate ‘men and women of faith’ into positions of political power”, RNS reported at the time. Feucht’s channel also carries a video of Hawley addressing his Let Us Worship event in Washington in 2022.

The Guardian has previously reported on Canadian cities cancelling Feucht’s performances.

The Guardian emailed Feucht for comment via Sean Feucht Ministries.

Teepell reportedly became Jindal’s chief of staff when Jindal took office as Louisiana governor in January 2008, and left the post in 2011 to become a partner at OnMessage. He managed Jindal’s 2016 presidential campaign, the Guardian reported in 2015.

OnMessage’s biography of Teepell, archived in 2019, describes him as Jindal’s “first chief of staff” and says he “served as lead consultant for Senator Josh Hawley’s upset victory over incumbent Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill” in 2018. Hawley’s campaign paid OnMessage $7,489,181 during that election cycle, FEC records show.

The younger Teepell joined Hawley’s Senate office as an intern in 2023 and rose to operations director before leaving in February, the Guardian reported on Monday, citing staff records. Before that, he was a part-time associate at OnMessage Inc from May 2020 to May 2023, according to his LinkedIn profile. After leaving Hawley’s office he became political director for Philip Sarnecki’s campaign for governor of Kansas. Sarnecki lost the Republican primary on 4 August.

Republicans have pressed the Muslim Brotherhood line against El-Sayed for several weeks. His opponent Mike Rogers, raised alleged Brotherhood ties during a debate, and Donald Trump has said without evidence that El-Sayed is “100%” Muslim Brotherhood. There is no evidence that El-Sayed has been involved with the group.

The Michigan Daily found no evidence that Rogers’ campaign was involved in the plan to disrupt the Flint town hall, and FEC records show no payments from Rogers’ campaign to Breakthrough.

The El-Sayed campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.