This past Wednesday, August 8th, former federal prosecuting attorney Andrew McCarthy spoke at the National Press Club in Washington about the Muslim Brotherhood and its growing influence within the corridors of our country’s governing institutions. Here’s how he started out:
Imagine, if you will, the following scenario.
A candidate for a high position in an executive branch agency — a position that entails a great deal of influence over public policy, a position that requires access to highly classified national security information — comes in for an interview by the FBI.
This is a routine background investigation. Even people being considered for low-level positions in the executive branch are subjected to them. It is not because we question their patriotism or suspect that they are bad people. It is just common sense — in addition to being the subject of a good deal of statutory law and federal regulation.
Naturally, as government positions get higher, more important, and more sensitive, the background investigations get more detailed — probing not only a candidate’s background, experiences, finances and associations, but those of the candidate’s close family members.
One matter that is of particular importance is connections to foreign countries, organizations, persons and movements. There’s an entire section devoted to these concerns in Form 86, the form that all candidates for national security positions in the federal government are required to complete.
Let’s assume that our candidate truthfully completes the form. What do you suppose our FBI agent is thinking as he flips through the form, asks some follow up questions, and gets the following story from the candidate:
“I’ve worked the last dozen years at an institute that was founded by a wealthy, influential Saudi who is intimately involved in the financing of terrorism.”
“Are you just speculating about that?” the candidate is asked.
“Speculating? Oh, no, no, I’m not speculating. You see, this Saudi guy actually started an ostensible ‘charity’ that the United States government has designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. It is a designated terrorist because it lavishly funded al Qaeda — you know, the jihadist network that we’re at war with. As a matter of fact, one of the men this Saudi guy brought in to help him run the specially designated terrorist organization, was so close to Osama bin Laden, that he actually helped bin Laden start al Qaeda.”
The agent figures, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I guess you didn’t know this Saudi guy who was funding al Qaeda, right?”
“Well,” our candidate responds, “as a matter of fact, we overlapped for seven years at that institute I worked at. Remember I told you that he’s the one who started it and I eventually worked there for twelve years? Well, turns out he stayed involved in it for decades — it was his baby … he gave the institution its mission and its vision. He was still there advising it and shaping it for my first seven years there. Then they took him off the masthead … right around the time he became a defendant in the civil lawsuit filed by the victims of the 9/11 attacks.”
The agent is stunned. All he can think to ask is: “Why did you leave the institute?”
“Oh,” our candidate replies, “I got offered a full-time job at the State Department, helping the secretary of State make U.S. foreign policy.”
I really wish that was a farfetched story.
Couldn’t be talking about Huma Abedin, could he? And what might that tell you about her husband, disgraced former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who’s hinted at running for NYC mayor? Oh, well, wonders never cease.
Must be something else going on. Wouldn’t you think?
Ciao,
Dennis
P.S. Et tu, Hillary? Mr. Maverick, McCain?
Update: Et tu, Karen Hughes? In his response to an op/ed criticism by Dana Milbank of the Washington Post, Mr. McCarthy discusses a visit by Karen Hughes of the Bush II Administration to the college in Saudi Arabia founded by Huma Abedin’s mother, “Dar al-Hekma.” Milbank asserts that this incident negates McCarthy’s criticism of the Obama Administration. McCarthy retorts:
But anyone who has followed what I’ve been arguing here and elsewhere for years knows that I was extremely critical of the Bush administration’s outreach to the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. Contrary to Milbank’s intimation, I was not making a partisan argument; I was making a national-security argument.
Mr. Milbank?
If nothing else, Ms. Hughes seems to have planted a suffragette seed during her 2005 trip to the Arabian Peninsula as Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy: Saudi Women to Get Their Own Wheels?