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FIRST ON FOX: A top Republican confirmed he will seek a “full investigation” of a likely Democratic colleague whose ties to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing mastermind roiled the 2026 midterm landscape after New Jersey’s Tuesday primaries.
Dr. Adam Hisham Hamawy is a veteran combat plastic surgeon who operates his own practice near Princeton but has been heavily criticized for his ties to and service as a defense witness for terrorist Omar Abdel-Rahman — better known as the “Blind Sheikh” — who later died in a North Carolina federal prison.
Rep. Michael Lawler, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Middle East Subcommittee, expressed his concerns about Hamawy serving in Congress and later confirmed to Fox News Digital that he will indeed seek a probe of the controversial progressive.
Hamawy won a 12-way Democratic primary Tuesday for a Central Jersey seat that has not elected a Republican this century — and now faces perennial candidate Prof. Gregg Mele in November.
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Lawler told Fox News Digital that Hamawy’s resume is more than disqualifying for someone whose day job would give him access to the nation’s most sensitive national security information.
“Adam Hamawy was a defense witness for Omar Abdel-Rahman, the Blind Sheikh behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and a year earlier volunteered in Bosnia with an organization the U.S. Treasury designated a financier of terrorism and the 9/11 Commission tied to Osama bin Laden’s network,” Lawler said.
“He has never answered for any of it.”
Lawler questioned Hamawy’s “fit[ness] to serve” in Congress and to be privy to the same information he is on the Foreign Affairs panel.
“If he’s elected in November, I’ll push for a full investigation because the American people deserve the truth.”
Lawler notably represents Rockland County, N.Y. — an area just north of New York City with a sizable Orthodox Jewish population — and has been a steadfast defender of Israel and the Jewish people against threats from Iran and Hezbollah.
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Hamawy previously volunteered at a Gaza hospital amid the conflict.
Lawler’s district recently hosted President Donald Trump’s rally featuring New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart — and his visibility on counterterrorism and Israel issues was brought to the fore when Sen. Rand Paul’s, R-Ky., son drunkenly confronted Lawler at a Washington bar and “accused” him of being Jewish during a diatribe about Israel.
Neighboring Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat from North Jersey, didn’t directly call for a probe but told Jewish Insider that he has “serious questions and deep concerns” about Hamawy’s “associations with terrorist organization and leaders who have attacked America.”
Like Lawler, Gottheimer said Hamawy must answer for these connections to the people of the Garden State.
Abdel-Rahman’s team called Hamawy as a witness, where he described traveling to Detroit for a conference at which the extremist cleric would appear.
Hamawy testified Abdel-Rahman regularly spoke of “jihad” and that at one point the Sheikh questioned Emad Salem — who later became a government informant — as to why Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak had not yet been assassinated.
Hamawy has blamed Islamophobia for some of the invective directed his way — and pushed back on similar characterizations, including from one of his own Democratic primary challengers, Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp.
“Any Muslim is going to be called a terrorist at some point, and these tropes are outdated and worn,” he told the New Jersey Monitor in response to Mapp.
Hamawy’s campaign previously told Fox News Digital that he was in the military when the events covered Abdel-Rahman’s trial took place, and pointed to allies like Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who credited the surgeon with saving her life on the battlefield.
The prosecutor who led the U.S. government’s case against Abdel-Rahman, however, noted how Hamawy appeared voluntarily to defend the Blind Sheikh.
“He didn’t have to come unless he wanted to,” former U.S. Attorney Andrew McCarthy told “The Story” on Wednesday.
“It wasn’t like I subpoenaed him. It wasn’t like the government brought him in as a hostile witness. He volunteered to testify for this guy. He knew exactly who he was. And in fact, on cross-examination, his testimony that he didn’t recall a conversation about Mubarak was not very persuasive,” McCarthy said, referring to the cleric’s trip to Detroit.
Hamawy also greeted Abdel-Rahman from the stand with the Muslim greeting of Salaam Alaykum, suggesting personal familiarity, according to several critics.
When pressed by reporters earlier in the primary, Hamawy argued that Abdel-Rahman was a spiritual leader in the state’s Muslim community and “wasn’t preaching death and destruction all the time” while adding that he himself abhors all violence.
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Hamawy and Abdel-Rahman first met at a middle school forum in Matawan, New Jersey, in 1991, according to the former’s testimony in court.
The candidate did not respond to Fox News’ latest request for comment.
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