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Republican Senator John McCain (AZ) took to the Senate floor Wednesday to criticize fellow Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN) and four other Republican members of Congress about their request that various agencies investigate whether the government has been infiltrated by Muslim extremists.

Bachmann is joined in her request by Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Rep. Thomas Rooney (R-FL) and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA).

Among the issues they raise is a claim that long-time aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, has three family members connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and is at risk of being influenced by her family members. The members of Congress want to know how she holds a high level security clearance.

"The concerns about the foreign influence of immediate family members is such a concern to the U.S. Government that it includes these factors as potentially disqualifying conditions for obtaining a security clearance, which undoubtedly Ms. Abedin has had to obtain to function in her position," Bachmann wrote in a letter defending the request. "For us to raise issues about a highly-based U.S. Government official with known immediate family connections to foreign extremist organizations is not a question of singling out Ms. Abedin. In fact, these questions are raised by the U.S. Government of anyone seeking a security clearance."

State Department spokesman Phillipe Reines called the accusations "nothing but vicious and disgusting lies," in a statement to CNN. McCain gave a full-throated endorsement of Abedin on Wednesday:

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To say that the accusations made...are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. It is far better, and more accurate, to talk straight: These allegations about Huma, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable woman, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant.

“The letter alleges that three members of Huma’s family are ‘connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.’ Never mind that one of those individuals, Huma’s father, passed away two decades ago. The letter and the report offer not one instance of an action, a decision, or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department that would lend credence to the charge that she is promoting anti-American activities within our government. Nor does either document offer any evidence of a direct impact that Huma may have had on one of the U.S. policies with which the authors of the letter and the producers of the report find fault. These sinister accusations rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Huma’s family, none of which have been shown to harm or threaten the United States in any way. These attacks on Huma have no logic, no basis, and no merit. And they need to stop now.

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http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/18/mccain-refutes-accusations-by
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On Tuesday night, Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress. also criticized the claims made by Bachmann in an interview with Anderson Cooper on Anderson Cooper 360. Bachmann's claims of 'deep penetration' of Muslim extremist infiltration into the highest levels of the U.S. government are "not true, it doesn't exist, its a phantom" and that "it just is the worst of guilt by association, it is a stark front to American values" and "we've got to stand up for this idea that we all count in this America."

Cooper and his team also took a closer look at the claims on the show last night

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Stay with me now because we're going to walk you through the logic that she lays out in this particular case.

Bachmann says that Huma Abedin's mother, brother and late father are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Here's how she figures it. Let's start with Abedin's father, a man named Syed Abedin, who's dead, by the way, a professor of social science, and the founder of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia decades ago. Now, Bachmann attributes this information to 2002 "Law Review" article out of Brigham Young University. According to that article, Professor Abedin's institute had the support of another man named Dr. Umar Abdallah Nassif who is a former general secretary of another group called the Muslim World League. Bachmann says that according to the Pew Forum the Muslim World League has a history of, quote, "being closely aligned and partnering with the Muslim Brotherhood."

So that's how many degrees of separation Bachmann's claim is based on. Huma Abedin's deceased father, who started an organization decades ago, had the support of a guy who had another organization that might have had the support of another organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. And because of that, Huma Abedin might be some sort of spy or infiltrator and deserves to be investigated.

As per Abedin's mother and brother, Bachmann never gives any evidence of their alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

We do know Bachmann and her fellow lawmakers repeatedly cites as their source the work of a group called the Center for Security Policy. A pretty serious sounding name. Its Web site is MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com. The man who runs the group is Frank Gaffney who says the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating every aspect of American life in order to impose Sharia law.

Now the Southern Poverty Law Center calls Gaffney, and I quote, 'The anti-Muslim's movement most paranoid propagandist." Before Gaffney was focusing on Huma Abedin, by the way, he was pointing fingers of suspicion at conservative Grover Norquist who's married to a Muslim woman. Those allegations, by the way, were condemned by a number of conservative groups. Gaffney was actually not allowed to go to CPAC one year because of these allegations.

Now we should also point out this is not the first time that Bachmann has relied on questionable sources and leaps of logic. You may remember two years ago right here on this program, Congresswoman Bachmann made some pretty outrageous claims about the cost of a trip President Obama was taking to India, saying that it would cost taxpayers $200 million a day.

It was true. Totally false. And it turned out the source of her unsubstantiated claim was an Indian news report that quoted an anonymous Indian source allegedly an Indian government provincial official. How an Indian provincial official would even know how much the president of the United States' trip costs doesn't make sense and was apparently never even questioned by the congresswoman.

Among this cast here, all of whom we've asked to come on the program, we should point out Bachmann is not the only one who has a history of making unsupported claims. One of the four other congressmen calling for an investigation to root out Muslim infiltration in the U.S. government is Louie Gohmert from Texas. Now this is not the first time that Congressman Gohmert has spoken about dangerous conspiracies without providing concrete evidence.

In 2002 he was sounding alarm over what we termed - excuse me, 2010, he was sounding alarm over what we termed terror babies. A terror baby conspiracy. Making this explosive claim that pregnant foreigners were coming to America to give birth to future terrorists. Babies with U.S. citizenship under the 14th Amendment who would then be taken back to the Middle East, raised for about 20 years, trained overseas as terrorists, and then be able to come back to the United States because they had U.S. passports.

Insidious, right? In a speech on the House floor, Congressman Gohmert actually presented all of this as fact, saying a former FBI agent told him the FBI had been looking into this problem. Later he cited a second source. A Hamas-loving grandmother on a plane in the Middle East.

You would think, by the way, if this was a real plot that he was really concerned about, you'd think he'd pick up the phone and maybe call the FBI, right? We actually did that. Unlike Congressman Gohmert, we talked with the FBI. They told us there was absolutely no credible evidence of a terror baby conspiracy. They had no idea what he was talking about.

So back to this current conspiracy theory. We just received a statement from Huma Abedin's office about the allegations. The statement says, quote, "They are nothing but vicious and disgusting lies that have no place in reasonable political discourse. And anyone who traffics in them should be ashamed of themselves."

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What I would say what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating exposé and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would be — would love to see an expose like that.

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As controversy has raged this week over her calls for an investigation into alleged Islamic influence in the U.S. government, Rep. Michele Bachmann has not backed down.

Instead, she has zeroed in on a fellow congressman from Minnesota, too.

Bachmann has accused U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, one of the first to challenge her earlier statements, of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Ellison, a Minneapolis Democrat and the first Muslim elected to Congress, denied her allegations.

Bachmann isn't retreating.

She defended her inquiries in an interview with conservative talk show host Glenn Beck on Thursday. That's when she made the comments about Ellison, who had criticized Bachmann and others and asked them to produce evidence that such infiltrations were taking place.

"Well, he has a long record of being associated with (the Council on American-Islamic Relations) and with the Muslim Brotherhood," Bachmann told Beck.

Ellison told the Huffington Post that the claims were completely false. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood," he said.

He told Politico it's "clear" that Bachmann "wanted attention" and that she's trying to marginalize "a certain group of Americans."

Bachmann spokesman Dan Kotman said she was unavailable for comment Friday.

When asked for evidence of Ellison's connection to the Muslim Brotherhood, Kotman cited two news articles showing Ellison's ties to CAIR, a Muslim civil rights advocacy group, and the Muslim American Society.

Minnesota Republican leaders have remained mum on the topic. When asked if he wanted to comment, state GOP chairman Pat Shortridge replied, "No."

But state Democrats had plenty to add, with Minnesota DFL chairman Ken Martin saying Friday that Bachmann has "once again reached a new low in her endless quest for political relevance" with a baseless witch-hunt. Her opponent in the 6th Congressional District, hotelier Jim Graves, said Bachmann has a history of making unwarranted and inappropriate comments and three terms in office is enough.

Graves said he's had an uptick of traffic to his website this week, as well as increasing number of people calling and offering to host fundraisers and meet-and-greets for him.

"There's just no room for shameful rhetoric like that in America," he said. "This weren't just some off-the-cuff remarks. This is a thought out conspiracy. It's planned, it's calculated and it's disturbing."

Some of Bachmann's evidence comes from Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan defense official who runs the American Center for Security Policy and is described by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a "top Islamophobe." Gaffney developed a 10-part class titled "The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within."

He's also accused Grover Norquist, the founder of Americans for Tax Reform, of aligning himself with terrorist groups.

For Lori Saroya, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota and a resident of Bachmann's district, the bigoted attacks are troubling and hinder the progress groups like CAIR are trying to make.

"I've seen enough of Michele Bachmann doing these witch-hunts and smear campaigns. This isn't how we do things in America," Saroya said. "I'm embarrassed. I'm completely embarrassed as one of her constituents."

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Rep. Michele Bachmann's former campaign manager has joined the bipartisan chorus criticizing the Minnesota Republican for questioning the loyalty of State Department aide Huma Abedin and alleging she has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

"I have been a practitioner of tough politics for many decades," Ed Rollins wrote in an op-ed for FOX News. "There is little that amazes me and even less that shocks me. I have to say that Congresswoman Michele Bachmann's outrageous and false charges against a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin, reaches that threshold.

"Her unsubstantiated charge against Abedin, a widely respected top aide to Secretary Hillary Clinton, accusing her of some sort of far-fetched connection to the Muslim brotherhood, is extreme and dishonest," he continued.

Rollins, like Sen. John McCain in a floor speech earlier Wednesday, called out Bachmann for writing a letter urging the State Department to investigate whether Abedin -- a Muslim American and wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner -- and other officials were trying to influence U.S. foreign policy to aid Islamist causes.

Rollins demanded Bachmann apologize for the letter, which was signed by four other GOP lawmakers, and compared Bachmann's claims to Joe McCarthy's hunt for communists in the 1950s.

"Having worked for Congressman Bachman's campaign for president, I am fully aware that she sometimes has difficulty with her facts, but this is downright vicious and reaches the late Senator Joe McCarthy level," he wrote. http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_21110437/michele-bachmann-former-cam
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House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) isn't exactly coming to the defense of Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) over her claim that Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, may have ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Boehner warned that lawmakers shouldn't make such serious allegations without anything to back them up.

"From everything that I do know of [Abedin], she has a sterling character and I think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous," he said.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) weighed in on Twitter, writing, "Rep. Bachmann’s accusations about Sec. Clinton aide Huma Abedin are out-of-line. This kind of rhetoric has no place in our public discourse."

And on Thursday morning, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said he didn't "share the feelings" expressed in the lawmakers' letters.

Boehner made his point again later in the day in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"These are dangerous accusations," Boehner said of Bachmann's claims. "If somebody had the facts, somebody should have put the facts out there."

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