New US Muslim Brotherhood Report On American Muslims Holding Public Office

A coali­tion of Amer­i­can Mus­lim advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions tied to the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood has pub­lished a report on Amer­i­can Mus­lims elect­ed or re-elect­ed to pub­lic office dur­ing 2020. Accord­ing to the report titled “Amer­i­can Mus­lims Break­ing Barriers”:

March 2021 It is our inten­tion that this report serve as an inspi­ra­tion for oth­er Mus­lims and BIPOC peo­ple to run for pub­lic office in the Unit­ed States. We also wish that it will increase media cov­er­age of the rise of Amer­i­can-Mus­lims in our polit­i­cal sys­tem, and be a help­ful resource for orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ty orga­niz­ers look­ing to sup­port Amer­i­can-Mus­lims in pol­i­tics. Amer­i­can-Mus­lims are run­ning for office in high­er num­bers than ever before, and this trend is expect­ed to con­tin­ue with the many his­toric firsts we have seen across the coun­try since 2017.

Read the rest here.

The analy­sis was authored by the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) in part­ner­ship with JETPAC, a Mus­lim polit­i­cal action com­mit­tee led by CAIR-Mass­a­chu­setts board mem­ber Nadeem Mazen, and MPow­er Change, a civ­il rights NGO that has coop­er­at­ed with impor­tant orga­ni­za­tions in the US MB and whose head Lin­da Sar­sour has fam­i­ly ties to Hamas. The report iden­ti­fied three Demo­c­ra­t­ic state rep­re­sen­ta­tives and one appointee to the Biden admin­is­tra­tion tied to orga­ni­za­tions part of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, a transna­tion­al Islamist influ­ence net­work cov­ered by the Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR). They include:

• Ako Abdul-Samad, re-elect­ed to the Iowa state legislature’s 35th dis­trict. Abdul-Samad has act­ed as chair­man of the Amer­i­can Mus­lim Alliance, a Mus­lim advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• Mau­ree Turn­er, a for­mer board mem­ber of the CAIR-Okla­homa chap­ter who was elect­ed to the Okla­homa state legislature.

• Farooq Mitha, Direc­tor of Small Busi­ness Pro­grams at the Depart­ment of Defense. Mitha has served as a senior advi­sor on Mus­lim Amer­i­can engage­ment for the Biden cam­paign and is a board mem­ber and for­mer Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of Emgage Action, a Polit­i­cal Action Cam­paign asso­ci­at­ed with Emgage, an orga­ni­za­tion tied to the US Mus­lim Brotherhood.

• Michi­gan State leg­is­la­tor Abra­ham Aiyash, who served as pres­i­dent of the Michi­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty Mus­lim Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion.

Recent GIOR report­ing on CAIR and US elec­tions has also included:

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that CAIR and JETPAC were part of a coali­tion of Mus­lim and Arab groups tied to the US Mus­lim Broth­er­hood that launched a vot­er reg­is­tra­tion dri­ve head­ed by indi­vid­u­als strong­ly opposed to Don­ald Trump.

• An Octo­ber 2020 report that Cal­i­for­nia Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty offi­cials work­ing for CAIR had authored an elec­tion vot­ing guide pos­i­tive­ly rat­ing votes by Demo­c­rat law­mak­ers, includ­ing Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Kamala Har­ris, who ear­li­er had sent let­ters of sup­port to CAIR.

• A Novem­ber 2020 report that CAIR has issued a state­ment con­grat­u­lat­ing Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden on his vic­to­ry, vow­ing to hold the forth­com­ing admin­is­tra­tion account­able on Mus­lim inclu­sion and civ­il rights issues.

The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions is part of the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. It describes itself as “a grass­roots civ­il rights and advo­ca­cy group” and as “America’s largest Islam­ic civ­il lib­er­ties group.” It was found­ed in 1994 by three offi­cers of the Islam­ic Asso­ci­a­tion of Pales­tine, part of the US Hamas infra­struc­ture at that time.

For more on CAIR, go here.