For a long time, Glenn has been warning people about Grover Norquist, a well-known progressive in the Republican party. Frank Gaffney, founder of the Center for Security Policy, joined Glenn on radio today and explained why he believes Norquist has been part of an “influence operation” on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood that has obscured the danger the Islamist group poses the the United States. Why do America’s leaders have such a problem naming radical Islam as a threat to the Western way of life? This interview sheds new light on the story.
Start listening to the interview at 6min 25 seconds:
"There is a re-election campaign going on right now in the NRA for Grover Norquist. And Grover Norquist is I believe one of the more dangerous men in America. And they've done a really great job of making anybody who thinks Grover Norquist is a dangerous man look like a conspiracy theorist. But he is a dangerous man," Glenn said on radio.
Frank Gaffney said, "I wouldn't have believed this myself if I hadn't had the providential experience, I guess, Glenn, of actually being co-located with his organization, for seven biblically long years. And in this course of that time, about a month after we moved into this shared sublet arrangement, a colleague of mine said there's a Muslim Brotherhood front group on the other side of that Xerox room, which we happened to share. So this anti-activist, the man who's promise in certain conservative circles particularly for his role in trying to keep taxes low and a pledge to not raise taxes and so on, has had a side line that he started, I discovered, back in 1998 when he began taking money and staff and otherwise associating with a top Muslim Brotherhood operative at the time by the name of Abdurahman Alamoudi."
"Alamoudi was subsequently imprisoned for 23 years in connection with terrorism charges and was also identified by the federal government as an al-Qaeda financier. This is a man who put Grover Norquist in the business of running an Islamist influence operation called the Islamic Free Market Institute, and I believe and what's so worrying about the possibility he might be re-elected to the [NRA] board...is I think these influence operations on behalf of enemies of this country are continuing. We've done a dossier on this which people can check out at securefreedom.org. It's called Agent of Influence, Grover Norquist and the Assault on the Right."
"Grover Norquist has been promoting, and he makes no bones about it, so-called leaders of Muslim American community, a number of whom, not just Alamoudi, but Sami al-Arian, for example, have also convicted on terrorism charges. Others are known Muslim Brotherhood operatives. He helped engineer their influence on George W. Bush at a critical time, within hours of 9/11, by the way. And subsequently, that I believe contributed materially to the problem we talked about on the show yesterday, a lack of clarity about the nature of the enemy. We're being subjected, thanks in part to Grover Norquist and his Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist friends to an influence operation."
What is an influence operation? Gaffney explained that it involves infiltrating enemies and
"An influence operation is one of the oldest pieces of tradecraft espionage and sort of state operations against enemies. You see what you can do to get inside their heads, to get inside their government, to get inside their civil society institutions, and undermine them from within. This is, by the way, the explicit mission of the Muslim Brotherhood. A plan they put together back in 1991. It was introduced into evidence down in Richardson, Texas, in 2008, by the federal government. It says [the Muslim Brotherhood's] mission in America...is to destroy western civilization from within by their hands, meaning ours, meaning infidels and the hands of the believers so that God's religion is made victorious over all other religions. And then it proceeds to lay out how the brothers are working to undermine from within the church, the media, academia, our financial sector, our government. And so on. And what I really am concerned about is the extent to which Grover Norquist has been an enabler of this, particularly against the conservative movement. And against the Republican party."
"What you cannot help but take away from a clear, objective reading of this dossier, Glenn, is Grover Norquist has in fact been serving as an agent of influence since 1998 for Muslim Brotherhood operatives and organizations and - oh by the way - for the Iranian government as wel. Running interference for them in a matter that is deeply I believe injurious to our interests."
"These are documented facts. He does deny them. He will accuse me of being a racist, bigot, and Islamaphobe and so on. And the board of the National Rifle Association and I believe the membership needs to know what these facts are and if they do, I can't imagine that they want that guy anywhere near a leadership position in that organization," Gaffney said.
Gaffney said that he is often asked what Norquist's motivation for helping the Muslim Brotherhood could be, and he admitted that he doesn't know why he does it. His actions, on the other hand, show that it is happening.
"This is particularly concerning because this guy is inside the wire of the conservative movement, of the Republican party, of the National Rifle Association and I believe it must come to an end," Gaffney said.
At the end of the interview, Glenn encouraged conservatives and NRA members to do their homework on Grover Norquist.
"I find this so serious, and I find him such a dangerous man, that I may reject my membership of the NRA if he's re-elected. I just don't think I can stand with the organization. And I love this organization. I think they do an awful lot of good and I think they are really good people. And I've helped raise millions of dollars for them. But Grover Norquist is a very, very bad and dangerous man in my opinion. And you need to do your own homework on it. Don't take my word for it, don't take Frank's word for it. Don't take Grover's word for it. Do your homework on it," Glenn said.
Read the dossier compiled by Frank Gaffney and the Center for Security Policy HERE.
Featured image courtesy of the AP