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ANDERSON COOPER:
–worry about alleged Muslim radicals infiltrating the U.S. government and the conservative movement. Now, it’s a bit of a hard story to follow, but we’re going to try to explain it as best we can. One former Reagan Administration official is saying that radical Islamists are trying to infiltrate nearly every faction of our American life, including the conservative movement. He’s pointing at a finger—a finger at an American Muslim who is a Republican, a conservative, and he accuses him of being a secret jihadist. We’re going to talk to both men in a second, but first let’s just look at the big picture. In November, Oklahoma passed a law banning a strict code of Muslim conduct of law called shariah law from that state. There had been no move to institute shariah law in Oklahoma, but the sponsors of the law there called it a preventative measure. In New Jersey, Republican governor Chris Christie—we’re just going to show you a picture of him. He’s on the left of your screen there. He’s being attacked for appointing the man on the right, Sohail Mohammed, a Muslim, to a judgeship. Here’s how blogger Daniel Greenfeld responded to Mohammed’s appointment in a post with the headline, “Governor Christie’s Dirty Islamist Ties”. Greenfeld wrote, and I quote, “New Jersey, the Garden State, has just taken its first step toward becoming the Sharia State.” He also criticized Christie for being, quote, “willing to stand up to the teacher’s union, but not to the terrorist’s union.” For the record, Mr. Mohammed has a track record of working to foster trust between American Muslims and law enforcement since the 9-11 attacks. In Washington, New York congressman Peter King, the new chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is planning to hold hearings next month on the threat posed by radical Islam in America. Now, it certainly seems like a legit—a legitimate issue to explore. Especially considering King is from New York where the Twin Towers fell, but some of the things King has said in the past has got some American Muslims worried. Here’s what he said on a radio program hosted by Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy.
PETE KING:
Frank, this is very unusual for our country because despite a person’s ethnic background or religious background, when a war begins, we’re all Americans. But in this case, that is not the situation. And whether it’s pressure, whether it’s cultural tradition, whatever, the fact is the Muslim community does not cooperate anywhere near to the extent that it should.
ANDERSON COOPER:
Now, that is a widespread perception. How accurate it is, is an arguable point. We do know that, according to the FBI, tips from the Muslim community helped thwart the Lackawanna Six near Buffalo, New York in 2002 and tips from the families of five young Muslims in the Washington suburbs led to their arrest in a police raid in Pakistan in 2009. In fact, a number of hope—high profile arrests have been made because Muslims contacted authorities with their suspicions. Now the radio show host that Congressman King was talking to in that clip we just played is this man, Frank Gaffney, who’s long been raising concerns that America’s institutions are being infiltrated by radical Muslims. Lately, he’s been sounding the bell again. This time, charging the radical Muslims who want to bring shariah law to the United States are working their way into conservative circles, including the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC. Gaffney is pointing the finger, particularly, at this man, Suhail Khan. A conservative political activist, who’s served as a senior political appointee in the Bush Administration. Khan sits now on the board of the American Conservative Union, or ACU, the group that runs CPAC. Recently, Gaffney sent the board a letter explaining why he thinks Khan is such a danger. Gaffney alleged that Khan’s father had ties to groups that are fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, which was one of the original modern radical Islamist groups that started in Egypt. Khan calls Gaffney’s charges absurd and offensive and he says Gaffney has no proof. Gaffney says Khan doesn’t have any proof it’s not true. Gaffney is basically accusing Khan of being a sleeper agent When Suhail Khan took a summer trip with an interfaith group to Auschwitz, for instance, and several of the Nazi death camps in Germany and Poland, to explore the tragic events of antisemitism, Gaffney says that was a ruse by Khan meant to throw people off the scent of his real intentions to help implement shariah law in America. Khan denies the accusations, even laughs them off, but Gaffney continues to insist he’s one of the few people who knows the truth. I spoke to both men earlier. [ROLLS CLIP]
ANDERSON COOPER:
Mr. Gaffney, you’re saying the conservative movement in America is being infiltrated by Muslims who are secretly trying to undermine the United States. I’ve read a lot of your allegations and a lot of conservative leaders, frankly, just don’t think they add up to very much. I mean, if this infiltration is so obvious, it seems like you’re having trouble convincing other people in the conservative movement about it.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
Well, it’s not so obvious, unfortunately, Anderson. And I think that, frankly, most of the conservative folks who have looked at it haven’t looked at it very carefully. We did a study called “Shariah: The Threat to America” at considerable length, but high quality national security minded professionals addressed this issue, found that the Muslim Brotherhood specifically is, in fact, working against not just conservatives, but against our civil society at large. And it would be sort of extraordinary if they were going after folks like you in the media, they were going after our government, they were going after our judicial system, our financial sector, and they were somehow leaving out the conservative movement. Of course, they haven’t. And I believe that Suhail Khan is one of the ways in which they have, in fact, effected that influence operation against the conservatives.
ANDERSON COOPER:
Mr. Khan, I want to ask you about some of the specific claims that Mr. Gaffney has been making about you. And there are a lot of them. I mean, was your father part of the Muslim Brotherhood?
SUHAIL KHAN:
No, he was not. He was a high tech engineer in the Bay Area. Frank’s allegations go back to ten years. They’re completely false. He’s never had any evidence backing any of these allegations up. Nobody’s ever believed him. Those that looked into it, the people at The Washington Post, National Review, and other reputable sources found there was no factual basis to these allegations and that’s why, as you rightly pointed out, conservatives across the country are ignoring Frank’s attacks as really unhinged and crazy attacks that are coming out of nowhere.
ANDERSON COOPER:
Mr. Gaffney, your allegations really amount to kind of guilt by association or, you know, or Mr. Khan went and—at the behest of the White House, spoke to some Muslim group and somebody who introduced him later did something. I mean, it seems very tangential. I don’t—when I actually look at your allegations, it doesn’t seem to amount to much.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
May I respond?
ANDERSON COOPER:
Yeah.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
You are suggesting that they are my allegations. These allegations, as you call them, have been proven in a court of law by the Department of Justice. CAIR is a Hamas organization found to be so by a federal judge in the Holy Land Foundation Trial.
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] If the United States government believed it was a terrorist front organization, they would stop it.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? And my argument is evidence of the success of a kind of information dominance that the Muslim Brotherhood has achieved. Not just in the conservative movement, but across this country. It’s perfectly profound in what you just said. You’d think that the United States government would not be dealing with organizations that the Muslim Brotherhood itself has identified as their organization. An organization like the Muslim Students Association, which Mahboob Khan founded, organizations like the Islamic Society of North America, which he was a leading force in, organizations like the Council on American/Islamic Relations, which Mrs. Khan is a board director of right now. I mean, these are—these are not my allegations, Anderson, these are material facts that we need to have investigated because when they are investigated, I don’t have any doubt how this is going to turn out. If we keep ignoring it, if we keep turning a blind eye to it, we will continue, I’m afraid, to be subjected to the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda, which is to destroy us from within.
ANDERSON COOPER:
Mr. Khan, these organizations that he’s mentioned, are they all fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood?
SUHAIL KHAN:
No, they’re not. They have been proved as such. If they were, they’d be shut down as you rightly pointed out. [OVERLAPPING VOICES]
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] They actually have–
SUHAIL KHAN:
[OVERLAP] –reputable, reputable people, including the federal government, has looked into these accusations, have found they’re completely baseless, and really, that is why everybody’s ignoring Frank and these accusations and really, you go back to 9-11, we were attacked by people who were purveyors of hate and murder and a decision that we have as Americans is to make is do we want to choose fear or do we want to choose faith and I choose faith.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
Well, this is the standard response.
SUHAIL KHAN:
It’s the truth. That’s why–
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] No, I don’t think it is the truth. It is the standard ad hominim response to attack the messenger, but here’s a relevant point. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] When Suhail and I—when Suhail and I had a last opportunity to debate at length in front of a group called The Harbor League, he spoke very approvingly of a gentlemen by the name of Feisal Abduf Rauf, a man we didn’t know very well at the time but we’ve heard a lot about since because he’s a Muslim Brotherhood operative trying to bring shariah to America. And, again [OVERLAPPING VOICES] that’s what his book [OVERLAPPING VOICES]
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] You’re talking about the man–
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] Suhail Khan–
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] You’re talking about this imam [OVERLAPPING VOICES] You’re talking about the imam who was sent by the U.S. State Department overseas to represent the United States.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAPPING VOICES] I am indeed. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] Would you suggest that that is a problem? I think it is. If we are actually using Muslim Brotherhood operatives to promote their version of what should happen to America it would be a travesty. And yet, that’s exactly what we’re doing.
ANDERSON COOPER:
A lot of your evidence amounts to like people who introduced him at a speech that he made. I’ve had people introduce me in speeches, I have no idea who they are. If they go on two years from now to rob a bank, am I somehow a culprit in that?
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] May I, may I–
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] You’ve had people, I’m sure, introduce you in speeches and you have no idea who they are.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
Let me ask that specific—address that specific point. Abdul Rahman Alamoudi was at the time one of the top Muslim Brotherhood operatives in the United States. Suhail Khan knew him very well. And he knew Suhail Khan very well. You are telling me, Suhail Khan, you did not know Abdul Rahman Alamoudi when you went and spoke at the ISNA conference? [OVERLAPPING VOICES] No, no, you said—you actually said in that inter—that moment, that you appreciated [OVERLAPPING VOICES] appreciated—no, no, no–
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] Mr. Gaffney–
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] –that you appreciated–
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] –it does seem like all your charges boil down to people who introduce him on a stage. [OVERLAPPING VOICES] Or groups that his parents may or may not have worked for.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] That’s unbelievably–
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] That’s my interpretation of what—of what you’re charging.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] –you have evidently not been listening to this interview. And when you’ve finished slicing and dicing it, I hope that what I have pointed out that is very much at odds with what you’ve just said won’t be left on the cutting room floor. I’m presenting material facts of associations by Suhail Khan and his family that go back to the founding of the Muslim Brotherhood in America in which they were intimately involved.
ANDERSON COOPER:
[OVERLAP] Okay, Mr. Khan, I want you to be able to respond.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
[OVERLAP] –denials of those are simply incredible.
SUHAIL KHAN:
[OVERLAP] I served—I have served our country proudly for over fifteen years, including in the Bush Administration for eight years. People that know, the National Security Agency, the FBI and others, did a full background check on me as they do for every person who’s in or around the president and high ranking officials. I’m completely a loyal American. Frank’s accusations are completely crazy and, again, we can choose between fear or faith. I choose faith in the American people and the Constitution.
ANDERSON COOPER:
Frank Gaffney. Suhail Khan. I appreciate it. Thank you.
FRANK GAFFNEY:
Thank you.