A paid campaign staffer for Michigan's leading Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed has been indicted as part of an eight-person conspiracy to threaten University of Michigan officials into severing ties with Israel. Because of course she was. The party of "tolerance" strikes again — this time with terror-related harassment charges.

Remember when Democrats told us they were the party that stands against political violence and intimidation? Pepperidge Farm remembers. So does the 63-page indictment.

Here's what we know. Mariam Odeh, 24 years old, from Dearborn, Michigan, is listed as defendant number seven in the indictment unsealed on June 10. According to the Detroit News, "One of the eight people indicted Wednesday for allegedly conspiring to threaten University of Michigan leaders to pressure them to sever ties with Israel worked for the U.S. Senate campaign of Abdul El-Sayed." Not a volunteer. Not a random supporter who showed up to a rally. A paid staffer.

How paid? Campaign fundraising disclosures show Odeh received a $154 salary disbursement on March 3 and another $593 on March 13. She was employed by El-Sayed's campaign as recently as April. The campaign was literally writing her checks while she was allegedly conspiring to terrorize university administrators.

Abdul El-Sayed isn't some backbench city councilman. He's the leading Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Michigan — one of the most critical swing states in the country. This is a guy who wants to represent Michigan in the United States Senate, and his own vetted, paid campaign staff is getting hauled in on terror-related harassment charges tied to a Hamas-linked conspiracy.

As commentator Alex Joffe put it perfectly: "personnel is policy."

That's exactly right. You are who you hire. And El-Sayed hired someone who allegedly thought the proper way to influence university policy was through threats and intimidation on behalf of a designated terrorist organization's agenda. Eight people total were indicted in this conspiracy — eight people who allegedly coordinated to threaten University of Michigan leaders. And one of them was cashing checks from a Democratic Senate campaign.

Now, let's play a quick game. Imagine — just imagine — that a paid staffer for a Republican Senate candidate had been indicted in a conspiracy to threaten university officials. Imagine the staffer had ties to any group even tangentially connected to right-wing extremism. CNN would run a seven-part documentary. MSNBC would pre-empt regular programming. The New York Times would dedicate the entire front page for a week.

But a Democrat's staffer gets busted in a Hamas-linked threat plot? As Twitchy reported, the mainstream media can barely be bothered to cover it. They're too busy fact-checking Trump's breakfast orders.

The real question now is what El-Sayed knew and when he knew it. Did he know about Odeh's activities? Did anyone on his campaign raise concerns? Or was the campaign so ideologically captured that threatening university officials over Israel was considered perfectly normal behavior?

Michigan voters deserve answers. They probably won't get them — but they deserve them.