Character Witness for a Terrorist Mastermind Elected to Congress in N.J.

Dr. Adam Hamawy, a onetime defense witness for the terrorist mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, is going to Congress after he cruised to victory running as a Democrat in a suburban New Jersey district.Dr. Hamawy, a former U.S. Army doctor who campaigned alongside DSA podcaster Hasan Piker, took advantage of an already-blue district and a race that remained off the radar for most of the nation, including for Republicans, until the very last minute.Dr. Hamawy emerged out of a crowded Democratic primary field with a campaign that was centered on a narrow issue: Gaza. Dr. Hamawy accused Israel of genocide in Gaza and demanded an immediate halt to any US aid.He will replace retiring Democratic Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, a six-term lawmaker and the most progressive member of New Jersey’s congressional delegation, who decided to retire rather than seek re-election.Without having run for office before, Mr. Hamawy burst onto the scene early this year. Ms. Watson Coleman’s retirement had opened a floodgate of Democratic challengers for a suddenly open, safely Democratic seat. He entered the race with a video focused on his time as a physician in the US Army, where he was one of the team of combat surgeons in Iraq who saved the life of future US Senator Tammy Duckworth.After quickly racking up strong fundraising numbers, Mr. Hamawy steamrolled his primary opponents before much of the nation had any idea who he was. And facing perennial candidate Gregg Mele, who won the Republican nomination unopposed, Mr. Hamawy never had any serious challenge to his candidacy after the primary.But that meant that his ties to the “Blind Sheikh” – Omar Abdel-Rahman – who led the Jersey City cell that planned the 1993 truck bombing on the World Trade Center went largely unexamined.Two days before Election Day, the Atlantic magazine released a piece prying into those connections and eliciting evasive responses by Dr. Hamaway. The Manhattan Institute’s Jesse Arm called the report “bone chilling.”Court documents from the trial of Abdel- Rahman in 1993 revealed that not only did Mr. Hamawy testify as a character witness in Abdel-Rahman’s defense, but he accompanied the “Blind Sheikh” on a 13-hour road trip to Detroit in 1991. The two shared a hotel room on the trip, Dr, Hamawy testified.The Atlantic article called Dr. Hamawy “something of an acolyte” to Abdel-Rahman and said Dr. Hamawy spent time with him in mosques, schools and in his home, according to the transcript of Abdel-Rahman’s trial.“This characterization of a relationship, I think, really misrepresents things,” Dr. Hamawy told the Atlantic.Abdel-Rahman was arrested four months after the World Trade Center bombing for plotting to blow up two tunnels under the Hudson River and the United Nations building in Manhattan.Dr. Hamawy told the Atlantic that the man he called “Sheikh Omar” was a “blind old man.” The doctor, who will take office in January, said he was trusted by the US military to serve as a doctor and began to bristle at the reporter’s questions.“Clearly, clearly you have nothing else to talk about,” Dr. Hamawy told staff writer Michael Powell.On Election Night, Dr. Hamawy captured New Jersey’s Twelfth Congressional District with 70 percent of the vote.

Character Witness for a Terrorist Mastermind Elected to Congress in N.J.

Character Witness for a Terrorist Mastermind Elected to Congress in N.J.

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