In FrontPage this morning I discuss the roiling controversy over Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s call for investigation of Muslim Brotherhood influence in the government — specifically with regard to Congressman Keith Ellison:
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has accused
Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) of having a “long record of being
associated” with the Hamas-linked Council on American–Islamic Relations
(CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood.Evoking the days of McCarthyism, a common charge being leveled at Bachmann these days, Ellison responded: “I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.” He accused Bachmann of religious bigotry:
“I think she has a very narrowly prescribed definition of
who belongs and who doesn’t. And there’s a whole bloc of people she
don’t like. I think she thinks that we”re evil because we don’t
understand God the way she does”¦.It’s also about marginalizing and
alienating a certain group of Americans who she does not view are
American enough.”Not content with that, he accused her of petty attention-seeking:
“But you have to ask yourself, you know, why did she make
this so public? Why did she seem to be seeking public attention for
these allegations she was making? If she really had actionable
intelligence, why wouldn’t she go to the agencies that investigate these
things? I think the answer is clear that she wanted attention. That was
her goal all along.”The only problem with Ellison’s wounded-martyr stance toward
Bachmann’s accusations is that what she said is true: Ellison really
does have a “long record of being associated” with Hamas-linked CAIR and
the Muslim Brotherhood.As long ago as 2006,
Ellison’s closeness to Nihad Awad, co-founder of Hamas-linked CAIR, was
a matter of public record. Awad, who notoriously said in 1994 that he
was “in support of the Hamas movement,” spoke at fundraisers for
Ellison, raising considerable sums for his first Congressional race.
According to investigative journalist Patrick Poole, Ellison has appeared frequently at CAIR events since then, despite the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case “” so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR”s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.Poole explains that “according to Justice Department, Awad is a
longtime Hamas operative. Multiple statements made by federal
prosecutors identify Awad as one of the attendees at a 1993 meeting
of US Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Committee leaders in Philadelphia
that was wiretapped by the FBI under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) warrant. The topic of discussion during that 1993 meeting
was how to help Hamas by working in the U.S. to help sabotage the Oslo
Peace Accords.” But none of that fazed Ellison.CAIR is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Awad and CAIR”s
cofounder, Omar Ahmad, were officials of the Islamic Association for
Palestine (IAP) before founding CAIR. A captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document lists the IAP as one of the Brotherhood’s allied groups in the U.S.And as for the Muslim Brotherhood itself, in 2008 Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
What is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood. “In recent
years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American
Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s
major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a
contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” So reported the Chicago Tribune
in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s
English-language website, Ikhwanweb. The Muslim American Society, according to Steven Emerson,
director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “is the de facto
arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. The agenda of the MAS is to “¦
impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism
policy.”