(Abdul El-Sayed) Left-wing Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed presumably spent all day Monday huddling with his intrepid campaign advisers and emerged with a statement alleging the Washington Free Beacon “may have been illegally and unethically obtained” the audio recording we published earlier in the day of a campaign strategy call during which El-Sayed said he wanted to avoid commenting on Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death because many of Michigan’s Muslim voters were “sad” about it. Even El-Sayed’s lawyers at the Sandler Reiff law firm, who contacted us over the weekend to try and stop the publication of the report by our Alana Goodman, weren’t stupid or brazen enough to make that claim. The governing law protects journalists who were not themselves a party to any illegal acquisition, and it’s far from clear there was any illegal conduct in this case. Michigan is a one-party consent state. The Free Beacon, of course, can’t comment on its sources. But El-Sayed isn’t one to let facts or the law get in the way of his political campaign. “The fact that a rightwing news outlet may have illegally and unethically obtained a deliberation about how to talk about this by way of a disgruntled former employee is only a distraction,” he said in the statement. “They’re distracting from the fact that Donald Trump, Mike Rogers, the entire MAGA base doesn’t want to talk about the pain they’re forcing us all into.” On the recording, El-Sayed told aides that, if pressed on Khamenei’s demise, he would switch the subject to Jeffrey Epstein. Nice to see him employ the diversionary tactic here, but why didn’t he talk about Epstein? And hey, it’s not every day you get to have the guy who wants to avoid taking a position on the ayatollah’s death lecture you about ethics! READ MORE: Michigan’s El-Sayed Says Free Beacon ‘May Have Illegally and Unethically Obtained Recording’ and Employs Diversion Tactic Discussed in Campaign Strategy Call The U.S.-China C