Michael Macko's father was eating lunch in the basement of the World Trade Center on February 27, 1993, when a bomb ripped through the parking garage above him. William Macko, a 57-year-old Marine veteran, was one of six people killed that day. Thousands more were injured. Now, more than three decades later, the dead man's son is watching a New Jersey Democrat who once served as a defense witness for the man convicted of inciting that attack win a U.S. House primary, and he wants voters to know what that means.
Adam Hisham Hamawy won the New Jersey Democratic House primary on Tuesday. By Wednesday, Macko was on Fox News's The Story to register his objection.
The issue is not abstract ideology. It is a specific, documented connection between Hamawy and Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called "Blind Sheikh," an influential figure among al-Qaeda terrorists who was convicted of inciting the Manhattan bombing that took William Macko's life. And the son of that bombing victim says he cannot look past it.
Michael Macko describes himself as a lifelong Democrat, born and raised in New Jersey. He is not a partisan operative looking for a cable news hit. He is a man whose father was murdered by terrorists, and who now finds himself at odds with his own party's chosen candidate.
Macko told Fox News:
"It's just so disappointing... that this is the best candidate that we can come up with."
He framed his concern in personal terms. When your father dies in a terrorist attack, he said, the politics of terrorism stop being theoretical.
"When your father was killed at the hands of terrorists while he was in his workplace, especially prior to 9/11, which was just unfathomable... at the time, you become almost a single-issue voter."
That single issue is Hamawy's documented history with the Blind Sheikh.
Fox News reported that Hamawy first met Abdel-Rahman at a New Jersey middle school forum in 1991, two years before the World Trade Center bombing. What followed was not a casual acquaintance. Court testimony cited by Fox News states that Hamawy accompanied the Blind Sheikh to mosques. The Washington Free Beacon reported that the mosques Hamawy visited with Abdel-Rahman were the same ones where several WTC bombing suspects would meet.
Court records characterized Abdel-Rahman's Jersey City mosque as a "jihad office."
Hamawy later testified as a defense witness in Abdel-Rahman's case. Macko highlighted the timeline and what it implies:
"It was the time leading up to him, you know the time that he spent with him, you know between 1991, 1993 when the bombing was being planned."
He went further, pointing to Hamawy's own trial testimony:
"Hamawy was traveling with him around the country, acting as an interpreter. And even during the trial, he testified that he translated a fax in 1993."
That year, 1993, was the year the bomb went off. Macko drew the connection plainly:
"That's the year that the bombing took place. It's just too much of a coincidence that Hamawy did not have any idea of what was going on."
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman did not personally plant the bomb in the World Trade Center's underground parking garage. But several of his followers did. He was convicted of inciting the attack that killed six people and injured thousands in lower Manhattan.
His ambitions extended beyond that single bombing. Abdel-Rahman was later arrested on charges tied to a broader plot to wage what court documents described as "urban terrorism" against the United States, targeting landmarks including the George Washington Bridge.
Macko also referenced Hamawy's own testimony about the sheikh's rhetoric:
"[Hamawy] also testified that the Blind Sheik was preaching about jihad against America, and then... at the same time, while actually plotting a jihad that killed my father."
In other words, Hamawy himself acknowledged under oath that Abdel-Rahman preached jihad against America, and still chose to stand as a defense witness for the man.
Hamawy's campaign has pushed back. In a prior statement to Fox News Digital, the campaign called scrutiny of Hamawy's former affiliation with Abdel-Rahman "guilt-by-association" shaming.
The campaign also stated that Hamawy "condemns that man's violent rhetoric and actions, and all violence, hatred, and terrorism."
That framing asks voters to treat the connection as incidental, a youthful encounter that carries no weight decades later. But the timeline complicates that defense. Hamawy met Abdel-Rahman in 1991. He traveled with him. He accompanied him to mosques that court records linked to bombing suspects. He translated a fax for him in 1993, the year of the attack. And he voluntarily testified on Abdel-Rahman's behalf at trial.
That is not a passing handshake at a community event. It is a sustained association with a man later convicted of inciting mass murder on American soil.
Hamawy's primary victory did not happen in a vacuum. He entered the race with endorsements from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Twitch streamer Hasan Piker. That roster tells its own story about where the energy in the Democratic primary electorate sits, and what kind of candidate that energy rewards.
None of those endorsers have been quoted addressing the Abdel-Rahman connection. The endorsements stand without public caveat.
Michael Macko is not asking for sympathy. He is asking a straightforward question: How did this become the best the Democratic Party could offer New Jersey voters?
His father, William Macko, went to work one February morning and never came home. He was 57. He had served his country as a Marine. He died in a basement because a terrorist's followers detonated a bomb in the garage above him.
The man convicted of inciting that attack had a translator, a travel companion, and a defense witness named Adam Hisham Hamawy. And now Hamawy is the Democratic nominee for a U.S. House seat in the state where William Macko's son grew up.
Macko said it simply:
"This is just something that... I can't look past."
He shouldn't have to. No voter should have to weigh a congressional candidate's proximity to convicted terrorists and decide whether it counts. The fact that New Jersey Democrats chose this candidate anyway, with the full backing of their party's progressive wing, says less about Michael Macko's grief than it does about a party that has lost its bearings on who deserves a seat in the United States Congress.
