See Something, Say Nothing

by Philip Haney

  Alikhan, former Los Angeles deputy mayor, was appointed as assistant secretary for policy development by DHS Secretary Napolitano on April 24, 2009. He is a close affiliate of MPAC, as well as the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, yet another adversarial Muslim Brotherhood umbrella organization. In turn, the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California is directly linked to still other individuals and organizations with known ties to Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as ISNA, MAS, and MSA.

  The Rose El-Youssef article also pointed out that Alikhan may have been one of the main catalysts for the meeting of the American administration leaders with the Muslim Brotherhood since the events of September 11, 2001, and that he appears to have been the link between them during and after the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011.

  Elibiary, as I have mentioned, was appointed to President Obama’s Homeland Security Advisory Council on October 18, 2010, but resigned on September 3, 2014, after a controversial series of tweets and “inappropriate disclosure of sensitive law enforcement documents,” as a letter from DHS framed it.17 (See chapter 6.)

  The disclosure was brought to light after Gohmert singled out Elibiary at a House hearing in November 2011. The congressman confronted Napolitano with a charge that Elibiary, who had a security clearance as a member of the DHS advisory council, had “accessed a federal database and shopped sensitive reports to a left-leaning media outlet to publicize his claim that the department is promoting ‘Islamophobia.’”18

  Former assistant US attorney Andrew McCarthy documented that the DHS working group helped devise the new Obama counterterrorism strategy. McCarthy, who prosecuted the perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, said the strategy envisions having “law-enforcement pare back their intelligence-gathering activities and take their marching orders from ‘community partners.’”19

  Elibiary has been known as a strong supporter of Islamic theologian Sayyid Qutb, whose teachings inspired and continue to govern the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and numerous other Islamic jihadist organizations worldwide. He has also criticized the US government’s prosecution and conviction of the five former Holy Land Foundation officials, characterizing the case as a defeat for the United States. He was closely affiliated with Shukri Abu Baker, one of the “Holy Land Five” defendants, as well as with CAIR. And in 2004, Elibiary spoke at a conference that honored the founder of the Iranian Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini.20

  The Egyptian magazine also said that Rashad Hussain maintained close ties with people and groups in the Muslim Brotherhood network in America and that he participated in the June 2002 annual conference of the American Muslim Council, formerly headed by convicted terrorist financier Abdul Rahman Al Amoudi (aka Abdurahman Alamoudi).21

  Hussain advised the National Security Council in the development of President Obama’s “A New Beginning” speech. He has also served as Obama’s deputy associate counsel (2009), special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (2010), and special envoy for Strategic Counterterrorism Communications (2015).

  MPAC’s Marayati has been among the most influential Muslim American leaders in recent years. The Egyptian magazine showed the links between MPAC and the international Muslim Brotherhood infrastructure. Marayati has met numerous times with government and law enforcement officials in the last fifteen years.

  Obama appointed Magid (aka Mohamed Magid Ali), former president of the Muslim Brotherhood–founded ISNA, as an adviser to the Department of Homeland Security and to a seat on the Countering Violent Extremism Steering Committee in 2010. Beginning in 2003, Magid also has served as a board member of MPAC’s Washington, DC, branch.

  According to Rose El-Youssef, he has also given speeches and participated at conferences on American Middle East policy at the State Department and offered advice to the FBI.

  Patel maintains a close relationship with Tariq Ramadan, the grandson of Muslim Brotherhood founder Hasan al-Banna, Rose El-Youssef reported. He was also a member of the Muslim Students Association.

  WND reported on July 5, 2011, that Patel spoke at the main event of a three-day convention held by the Muslim Students Association and appeared on a panel alongside Tariq Ramadan and Siraj Wahhaj, who was named as a possible coconspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Wahhaj has also defended the convicted WTC bomb plotters and has urged the Islamic takeover of America. The convention was arranged by HLF coconspirator ISNA.22

  ASTONISHING COOPERATION

  To add some additional context, the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, has had a complex and often violent relationship with the Egyptian government and people.

  It’s why Egyptians were astonished to see the Obama administration’s cooperation with the Brotherhood during the Arab Spring.

  The trend surfaced in early 2008 with policy documents such as the “Words Matter” memo, but everyone in Egypt saw it up close and personal on June 4, 2009, when Obama came to Al-Azhar University and delivered his policy speech.

  Through some of my friends and contacts who were native Arabic speakers, I heard that little children were running through the streets of Cairo, shouting that the “American president quoted the Quran during his speech!” They were referring to a passage from Quran 5.32–33, which Obama paraphrased:

  Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths – but more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent … it is as if he has killed all mankind … [and] whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind … The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism – it is an important part of promoting peace.23

  On the surface, this paraphrased Quranic passage sounds reasonable, perhaps even biblical.

  However, the entire un-paraphrased passage is much more ominous:

  5.32: Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land – it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one – it is as if he had saved mankind entirely. And our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors.

  5.33: Indeed, the penalty for those who wage war against Allah and His Messenger and strive upon earth [to cause] corruption is none but that they be killed or crucified or that their hands and feet be cut off from opposite sides or that they be exiled from the land. That is for them a disgrace in this world; and for them in the Hereafter is a great punishment [emphasis added].24

  As the Christian world is familiar with John 3:16, so the people of Egypt and Muslims around the world are familiar with the Quranic passage paraphrased in Obama’s speech. Some probably could not help but wonder that an American president would actually quote from a section that explicitly calls for violence and killing.

  Meanwhile, during the summer of 2012, Gohmert continued pushing for an investigation of the Muslim Brotherhood’s influence on the federal government, contending a probe was necessary, partly because of the Obama administration’s “horrendous decisions” in backing the Arab Spring revolutions.25

  Incidentally, there is a double meaning in the phrase “Arab Spring.” In English, the term connotes political renewal, growth, and vibrancy.

  In Arabic, however, the term is a play on words. Ar-Rabi Al-Arabi means the “Arab Revival,” with a connotation of Islamic supremacy and Arab global domination, so that the entire world would ultimately submit to Islamic law, sharia.

  This is exactly the stated purpose of the Muslim Brotherhood, which was formed in response to the demise of the Ottoman Empire to help establish Islamic rule worldwide.

  Here in North America, its stated goal, according t
o the Explanatory Memorandum, is that “Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions,”26 which comes directly from Quran 2.193:

  And fight with them [unbelievers] until there is no more fitna, and the religion is only for Allah. But if they cease fighting [i.e., submit to Islam], then there should be no more hostility, except against the unjust polytheists and wrong-doers.

  In other words, Muslims are to keep fighting against anyone and everyone who does not embrace Islam – including you and me – until all of us finally submit.

  Then, there will be peace on the earth.

  THE FIVE

  By now, it should be abundantly clear that Muslim Brotherhood front groups like CAIR, ISNA, and NAIT should have no access to the American political process.

  And now that we’ve had more than three and a half years to consider the changes in the Middle East and the world, let’s go back and address the simple question that I posed at the beginning of this chapter.

  Did the five outspoken members of Congress have a valid reason to be concerned about the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, not only within the American political system but in the world at large? Were those “five Jeremiahs” right, or was the scorn of their impassioned detractors in Congress and the media, and in the Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR and MPAC, justified?

  Since the summer of 2012, the entire Middle East has devolved into chaos and violence, and the ubiquitous Muslim Brotherhood has been right there in the middle.

  In Egypt, the Arab Spring quickly turned into an attempt by the Muslim Brotherhood to impose Islamic law on the entire country, prompting a second, 30-million-strong popular uprising and the overthrow of the Mohamed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood–led government by the Egyptian army. Egypt today is on daily alert for attacks by any one of several jihad groups operating within the country and in the Sinai Peninsula.

  Libya, meanwhile, has descended into anarchy due to militias and Muslim Brotherhood–linked groups such as Ansar al-Sharia and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, many with ties to similar groups fighting in Syria.

  In Syria, there are several groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood of Syria fighting to overthrow Bashar al-Assad.

  Meanwhile, back here at home, not a single one of the groups named as unindicted coconspirators in the Holy Land Foundation trial has been brought to trial or even sanctioned. Instead, the leaders of these groups continue exerting influence on our political process and our immigration, law enforcement, domestic, and foreign counterterrorism policies.

  What happened in the summer of 2012 was about much more than a single individual named Huma Abedin and the specific ties she may or may not have had to the Muslim Brotherhood. Rather, it was an opportunity to come to terms with what we really believe as a nation and our responsibility to work together to help preserve and protect the constitutional liberties on which our great country was founded.

  My hope and prayer is that we will not miss the next opportunity. Either way, we will eventually have to confront the forces that seek to impose their own definitions of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” upon us.

  9

  HANDS OFF

  By March 2012, I had been at the National Targeting Center for about four months, assigned to the Advanced Targeting Team (ATT), where I worked mainly on the Tablighi Jamaat Initiative.

  As I recounted in the first chapter, we were paid a visit on March 27, 2012, by State Department officials who had expressed “concerns” about our focus on individuals affiliated with Tablighi Jamaat, because it was not a designated terrorist group and because of possible violations of its members’ civil rights and civil liberties.

  A day later, March 28, 2012, I happened to be off duty and had the first opportunity to meet with a member of Congress in the nation’s capital. The previous meetings, with Reps. Lynn Westmoreland in 2007 and Tom Price in 2009, had been in their district offices. This time, I met with Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-MN, and her chief of staff, Tera Dahl, at noon in their office at 103 Cannon Building, across the street from the US Capitol.

  My purpose for meeting with Bachmann was to alert her – and Congress, hopefully – to the difficulties law enforcement officers like me were facing inside the federal government. I provided her with a brief review of the concerns I had raised as early as 2007, then filled her in on more recent events, including the extraordinary meeting I had just attended at NTC with State Department officials.

  This initial meeting with Bachmann in the Cannon Building led to a series of more than forty-five briefings and presentations to various members of both the House and the Senate, which have continued to the present day. In every case, these elected officials were disturbed by what I shared with them, and whenever they asked me to come back, I would add something new to the story.

  It was Congress, not my own agency, that first called me a whistle-blower, which is not a term I used. As far as my own agency was concerned, I was subject to the same potential legal action, criminal charges, social stigma, or termination from my position that whistle-blowers have always faced.

  I recall one meeting with several Senate staff members.

  “You know, there’s one thing I’ve learned about this whole [whistle-blower] process,” I declared.

  They all waited for a moment; then someone said, “What’s that?”

  “Well, what I’ve learned from this whole process is that … there is no process!”

  There is no magic “Room 248” that a whistle-blower can go to in DC or anywhere else where a smiling, helpful person hands you a package of forms, then calls you back a few days later for a follow-up appointment. Neither is there any real rhyme or reason to how someone becomes a whistle-blower, or who officially designates that individual as worthy of protection, or who will pay for his or her legal fees.

  In fact, legal protection of whistle-blowers is subject to a dizzying array of contradictory stipulations. And even though there are hundreds of state and federal laws that grant protection to whistle-blowers, there are so many blank spots, holes, gray areas, and exceptions to the rules, that we remain an endangered species, highly vulnerable to retaliation and reprisal.

  Not to mention the traumatizing effect on our families and our friendships (Is this guy even safe to be friends with?).

  Reprisal, which is never called reprisal, often comes at the hand of the very same organization that we accuse, or sometimes from a related agency, such as the Department of Justice, and other times under the subtle guise of legal actions.

  In my case, all three types of reprisal – internal, external, and legal – happened at the same time, which I will discuss later.

  ORDERED FROM THE TOP

  Along with keeping track of the Tablighi Jamaat Initiative, I continued monitoring the activities of the individuals and organizations who were part of the Hamas Network case, which was started in 2006.

  In early May 2012, as the original author of the Hamas report and the “owner” of hundreds of linked sub-records, I was copied on a string of interoffice e-mails concerning a well-known Muslim Brotherhood leader named Jamal Badawi, who sought to enter the United States from Canada.1 A close affiliate of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT2) and cofounder of the Boston-area mosque attended by the Tsarnaev brothers, the Egyptian-born Badawi is one of the Muslim Brotherhood’s top leaders in North America.

  Badawi is also a close associate of Khaled Meshal, the current leader of Hamas, as well as Salah Sultan, a former US permanent resident who is now imprisoned under a death sentence in Egypt. He also is associated with Yusuf al-Qaradawi, currently a resident of Qatar who supports Hamas, Hezbollah, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

  Badawi also has been a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Fiqh Council of North America, European Council of Fatwa and Research, and International Union of Islamic Scholars. The latter two organizations are also led by Qaradawi.

  In 2004, the International Union of Islam
ic Scholars issued a fatwa stating that it was a religious duty for all able-bodied Muslims inside and outside of Iraq to wage jihad against the American military.

  In an Islam Online forum in June 2006, Badawi justified Muslim suicide bombings as a legitimate tactic of jihad. In 2007 he visited Sudan, ruled by an authoritarian Islamic regime, to attend a conference with Qaradawi, who has been banned from traveling to certain countries.

  Badawi was also named as an unindicted coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation case.

  In the May 2012 e-mail string between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, an astonishing policy was revealed: ordered from the very top of the administration, according to the e-mails, a so-called hands-off policy allowed Muslim Brotherhood leaders and others with Islamic supremacist beliefs and affiliations to travel freely in and out of the United States.

  On May 11, 2012, Badawi was scheduled to travel from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Tampa, Florida, via Newark to speak at a conference of the Islamic Society of North America, another unindicted coconspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation case. CBP officers had already created a dossier requesting that he be denied entry into the United States. However, in an e-mail sent just two days before Badawi’s scheduled flight, a DHS officer noted that Badawi had twice sued the government and that his records had been removed from the DHS database, adding that “the DHS Secretary was involved in the matter.”3

  As we’ll see later in this chapter, the deletion of my sixty-seven records related to the Institute of Islamic Education case was not the first time important TECS records had been removed by higher-ups in the agency.

  In the e-mail, the DHS officer wrote that Badawi had been given a secondary inspection several dozen times but had not been in secondary since September 2010.