David Brock built his career accusing conservatives of spreading misinformation.
His Soros-funded network just sent a million Michigan voters a fake newspaper packed with fake news for their Senate candidate.
The paper called Abdul El-Sayed two things he has never been – and the man running it is blaming a comma.
David Brock Pink Slime Network Gave El-Sayed Credentials He Does Not Have
The Michigan Independent looks like a local newspaper.
Recipes from "The Mitten Kitchen" run alongside partisan political coverage.
Michigan voters get it in their mailboxes whether they asked for it or not.
George Soros funds the whole operation, built to influence elections while pretending to be something else.
The August print edition ran a piece on El-Sayed's Senate primary win under this headline: "El-Sayed — veteran, doctor, and former health official — is Democratic Senate pick."
https://twitter.com/DonnieDetroit19/status/2092586844063936758
Abdul El-Sayed has never served a day in the United States military.
State records in Michigan and New York show no evidence he was ever licensed to practice medicine. He earned an M.D. from Columbia but left medicine before finishing a residency or passing his boards. He has never treated a patient as a licensed physician.
In a 2022 podcast, El-Sayed described his entire direct patient-care experience as a four-week sub-internship, joking he was "the worst doctor on the team" and likening it to "cosplaying a doctor."
That is the man the Michigan Independent called a veteran and a doctor in the same headline.
When the Washington Free Beacon confronted American Independent Foundation President Joe Conason about the veteran claim, he said it was a typo – a misplaced comma. The word "veteran" was meant to modify "doctor and public health official," not stand on its own as a military credential.
The Free Beacon then asked whether "veteran doctor" was accurate for a man who has never held a medical license.
"Whether he's a physician or not, he's a doctor," Conason said.
David Brock Built a Fake News Operation and Called Himself the Misinformation Police
Joe Conason is not just any operative.
The two American Independent entities paid him a combined $231,000 in fiscal year 2024.
By his own public declarations, he is America's foremost crusader against media dishonesty.
"I'm so done with journalism that laments a misinformed public rather than informing Americans of what's true – and NOT true," Conason wrote in 2023.
That same year, he declared there "has never been a media outlet with a worse record for accuracy than Fox."
The man who wrote those words just sent a million Michigan voters a newspaper calling their Senate candidate a military veteran when he is not one.
The Michigan Independent is part of David Brock's American Independent network, launched in 2016.
George Soros's Open Society Foundations sent $500,000 to the American Independent Foundation in 2022.
In 2024, the American Independent Foundation funneled $11.2 million to American Independent Media – the arm actually running the Michigan Independent.
Active Facebook ads for the site are funded by the same foundation at a cost between $20,000 and $26,000.
Brock's operation has run this play before. In 2021, the "Virginia Edition" mailed voters a false claim that Glenn Youngkin had called COVID relief "unnecessary."
The following year, Pennsylvania and Arizona arms pushed Democrat talking points through Facebook ads designed to look like local news coverage.
Soros and his family have now pledged $300 million for additional U.S. political activities through 2031.
George Soros Is Pouring Dark Money Into the Michigan Senate Race
Michigan's open Senate seat is the kind of race that determines which party controls the chamber.El-Sayed now faces Republican Mike Rogers in a state both parties know they have to win.
Soros's network understands that – which is why the Michigan Independent exists alongside similar operations in Montana, Pennsylvania, and other battlegrounds. The format is always the same: local-sounding name, recipes on page three, Democrat propaganda on page one.
Conason did not correct the veteran error before the mailers reached one million voters. He addressed it only after the Free Beacon called.
The Michigan Independent affixed an editor's note to its online version – blaming a "misplaced comma."
That comma turned an unlicensed, never-served Senate candidate into a military veteran – and it reached a million Michigan homes.
George Soros funded the operation. The man who built his reputation attacking Fox News for spreading misinformation ran it.
David Brock has been running fake news operations since 2016. The only thing that changed this time is someone checked.
Sources:
- Collin Anderson and Alana Goodman, "Soros-Funded Fake News Site Falsely Identified Abdul El-Sayed as 'Veteran' in Mailer Sent to Michigan Voters," Washington Free Beacon, August 26, 2026.
- "Senate Candidate El-Sayed Claims Physician Title Without a License," Fox News, May 14, 2026.
- "Dark Money Group Falsely Labels El-Sayed a 'Veteran', Blames Headline Change," Just the News, August 27, 2026.
- "Dark Money Dems Use Fake Newspaper to Influence Virginia Election," Washington Free Beacon, October 6, 2021.
- "David Brock World Scores Fresh Checks from Dark Money Donors," Washington Examiner, November 25, 2024.
- "A Desperate El-Sayed Campaign Is Now Tapping the Old Soviet Propaganda Playbook," PJ Media, August 27, 2026.
