Democrats Honored Iranian Regime Figure as U.S. Bombed Khamenei
Michigan imam praised slain Iranian leader while receiving taxpayer funds and appearing alongside Democratic officials who refuse to disavow their connections.
On the same day U.S. bombs killed Iran's Supreme Leader, a Michigan imam called his death an honor — and the Democratic leaders who shared stages with him have refused to say they didn't mean to be seen with him. Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi delivered a Ramadan eulogy for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Feb. 28, 2026, hours after the Iranian leader died in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike. That is an honor, that is a pleasure to be in the Paradise of Allah, Elahi told his congregation at the Islamic House of Wisdom.
Elahi has spent decades promoting Iran's revolutionary agenda inside the United States. A publicly available CIA report identifies him as head of the Iranian Navy's political ideological office in 1982. The U.S. Institute of Peace documented his task of inspecting American branches of Hezbollah and promoting Tehran's influence on Shi'ite communities.
Elahi's mosque has received at least $486,810 from the Alavi Foundation since 2000, according to tax records. The foundation was found by a federal court in 2017 to function as a proxy for Iranian governmental control. These financial ties raise questions about who funds American mosques and why officials continue welcoming them to high-profile events.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer welcomed Elahi to deliver a Muslim prayer at her second inauguration ceremony on Jan. 1, 2023. Photos on Elahi's social media showed him alongside former President Bill Clinton, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Secretary of State John Kerry. Michigan Democrats including Senator Gary Peters and Lt. Governor Garlin Gilchrist posed with the imam at various events.
Elahi donated more than $800 to Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed and over $1,000 to Gilchrist's campaign, according to campaign finance records. The political connections run deeper than mere handshakes. Elahi's mosque received $13,400 in Michigan taxpayer funds through the state's Newcomer Rental Subsidy program between February 2024 and May 2025, confirmed by a Freedom of Information Act request.
The Islamic House of Wisdom was among mosques named in a July 2023 Republican letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines calling for investigation of Iranian-backed institutions. No Democratic official has called for similar accountability.
Democratic leaders dismissed the connections when questioned. A Clinton spokesperson told Fox News the former president's interaction was 60 seconds of social niceties at a funeral. Shaking someone's hand isn't a connection or an endorsement, the spokesperson said. Duggan's campaign said the mayor does not know Imam Elahi any more than the many others across the political spectrum he encountered over the years.
Peters' office issued a boilerplate statement that the senator has long said that Iran and its leaders, like Ayatollah Khamenei, are bad actors. Benson's staffer stopped responding to inquiries after being told the story involved multiple Democrats. Several other Michigan Democrats ignored Fox News questions entirely.
The pattern contrasts with Republican action. Representative Doug Lamborn of Colorado and Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas demanded investigations into Iranian-backed mosques in their 2023 letter. Marshall said Iran's evil ideology and malign influence have no place here.
Jim Hanson of the Middle East Forum warned of dangerous consequences. Democrats hold a dangerously mistaken notion that Iran is part of the solution—not the main problem in the Middle East, Hanson said. This leads them to outreach here in the U.S. with Muslims tied to that tyrannical theocracy like Mohammad Ali Elahi.
He called the refusal to distance themselves from a figure who celebrates Iranian leaders' deaths as divine honors a moral collapse. The stakes are not abstract. Operation Epic Fury continues against Iran as American service members engage in combat against Iranian forces.
Elahi deleted photos showing his connections with Democrats from social media pages after Fox News began inquiries in early March. Screenshots preserved by the news organization show the extent of the relationships. The imam met with Iran's President Masoud Pezeshkian at the United Nations General Assembly in September 2024.
In that same month, Elahi declared Israel's victory in Lebanon would be short-lived. The Alavi Foundation, which funds his mosque, was accused by the Justice Department in 2008 of serving as a front for the Iranian government. Elahi is the only identifiable American member of the Ahlul Bayt World Assembly, an organization founded in 1994 by Khamenei to export Iranian revolutionary ideas abroad.
As Operation Epic Fury continues against Iran, the refusal of Michigan's top Democrats to disavow ties to a documented regime operative raises pointed questions about their judgment during wartime. With American service members engaged in combat against Iranian forces, voters must decide when association with a regime's propagandist becomes complicity.