Is Huma Abedin to the Muslim Brotherhood what Alger Hiss was to the Soviet Union?

Why are Republican Senator John McCain, Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rodgers (R-MI) acting in the growing Abedin controversy as Washington Establishment Democrats of the 1940s did in the Hiss episode? Which is to say, writing off the dangers of a foreign enemy whose goal is to infiltrate the U.S. government -- because, well, the people in question are part of the Washington Establishment? And last but certainly not least, why is the Republican Establishment pursuing a losing strategy in the war against Islamic radicalism? Is it returning to the losing strategy it pursued during the Cold War -- a strategy that was overturned over Establishment opposition by Ronald Reagan's victorious "we win, they lose" strategy? These questions arise because of McCain's vehement attack on Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann. Bachmann, along with four other conservative House members (Louis Gohmert of Texas, Trent Franks of Arizona, Thomas Rooney of Florida and Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia), has written a series of hotly controversial letters. What did Bachmann and the others do to infuriate McCain? And draw a rebuke from Boehner and Rodgers? The five House members wrote letters to the Inspector Generals of the Departments of State, Justice, Defense, and Homeland Security -- along with a fifth to the IG in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Asking? Asking that the recipients take seriously the possibility that the Muslim Brotherhood is becoming a security threat within the government of the United States itself. The congressional group cited chapter and verse to back up their concerns. This included the reference in the State Department letter to Ms. Abedin, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's deputy chief of staff. As the letters were individualized to five different departments, Abedin was mentioned only in the State Department letter, with other people or issues mentioned as relevant to the respective department receiving each individual letters. So Abedin was most certainly not alone. So why all the fuss from McCain and the others that focused on Huma? After all, the government itself has reported that an unwillingness to recognize the presence of Islamic extremism in the military is exactly what caused the Ft. Hood shootings by Maj. Nidal Hasan, a man whose sympathies with Islamic extremism was well-known but fatefully ignored

by his superiors. What is so disreputable about raising the very same questions about Ms. Abedin, her security clearances, and the Muslim Brotherhood? There are two serious points at issue here. Let's start with the Washington Establishment and Huma Abedin. Why all the fuss over the mention of Huma? Because Ms. Abedin's prominence comes both because of her position in the State Department -- and her political connections through her husband. Ms. Abedin, if known at all outside the corridors of Washington and Establishment power, is prominent because of her marriage to now-former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner. Yes, that Anthony Weiner, the Democrat who departed the House in haste when it became clear that was he was busy texting pictures of his uh nether regions to various women. But as Bachmann and company point out, Ms. Abedin plays a much more serious role in her own job as a senior aide to Secretary Clinton. (Abedin also worked in the Clinton White House as well.) The reason for the concern is expressed this way by Bachmann: For example, according to "The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within," a product of the Center for Security Policy (MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), the Department's Deputy Chief of staff, Huma Abedin, has three family members -- her late father, her mother and her brother -- connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making. In other words, the concern from Bachmann is that Abedin's family has or had (in the case of her late father) close ties to a group that is dedicated to "destroying Western civilization from within." Or, as it is known, "civilization jihad." To most Americans, the notion that a son or daughter is heavily influenced by family traditions and beliefs is a no-brainer. A sterling example of this would be no less than -- John McCain. It is John McCain himself who famously presented himself in just this fashion in his bestselling book Faith of My Fathers. Here's how McCain's book is advertised on the book flap: John McCain learned about life and honor from his grandfather and father, both four-star admirals in the U.S. Navy. This is a memoir about their lives, their heroism, and the ways that sons are shaped and enriched

by their fathers. Fair enough. So if that common-sense wisdom applies to John McCain -- why not to Huma Abedin? Just as McCain learned about "the ways sons are shaped and enriched by their fathers" -- isn't it just possible -- or probable -- that the same exact thing could be said about a daughter named Huma Abedin? That Huma Abedin has been "shaped and enriched" by the Muslim Brotherhood-believing "ways" of her father, mother and brother? And that those "ways" are now in some fashion influencing the policies that flow from the United States State Department precisely because Huma Abedin has the ear of the Secretary of State? And doubtless some degree of influence within the government bureaucracy? Of course this is possible to any sentient observer. But for having the brass to write these letters asking common sense questions that bear directly on national security, suddenly Michele Bachmann is under attack. From Republicans! And not just Senator McCain, either. Speaker of the House John Boehner jumped into the fray, saying that "from everything I do know of her [Abedin] she has a sterling character, and I think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous." House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rodgers piled on saying: "I have no information in my committee that would indicate that Huma is anything other than an American patriot." Catch that first name reference? Bachmann herself has stuck by her guns, responding to her critics by saying this to Glenn Beck: After the Fort Hood tragedy, a report was issued that said the real problem in our government is that we are not teaching FBI agents or our military to recognize radical Islam. So that's what we need to do. We need to teach about it. The Blaze reported the rest of what Bachmann said of Abedin this way: She is the chief aide for the -- to the Secretary of State, and we quoted from a document, and this has been well reported all across Arab media, that her father -- her late father who's now deceased was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood. Her brother was a part of the Muslim Brotherhood, and her mother was a part of what's called the Muslim Sisterhood. It would be, we have requirements to get a high-level security clearance. One thing that the government looks at are your associations, and in particular your family

associations. And this applies to everyone. It would be the same that is true with me. If my family members were associated with Hamas, a terrorist organization, that alone could be sufficient to disqualify me from getting a security clearance. So all we did is ask, did the federal government look into her family associations before she got a high-level security clearance. Without doubt the best look at this erupting controversy was done in this detailed piece titled "Questions about Huma Abedin" by Andy McCarthy over at National Review. Take a good read. (And there's a second brilliant piece by McCarthy which we will come to shortly.) McCarthy makes clear that no one is accusing Abedin of a crime. Bachmann certainly isn't accusing her of a crime. What is at issue, says McCarthy correctly, is this: asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedin's family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhood's agenda, such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy? McCarthy then specifically details the Obama administration policies toward the Muslim Brotherhood, policies he calls a "sea change" in American policy. A sea change that has flowed straight from the State Department where Huma Abedin is a top adviser to the Secretary of State. Stop. America has been here before. And yes, it was the case involving Alger Hiss. What was the biggest issue on the American foreign policy plate after the end of World War II? Right. The emerging Cold War with the Communist Soviet Union. And what was one of the very first problems that began to appear in the late 1940s? Right again. That would be the infiltration of the United States government by agents of the Soviet Union. Radicalized Americans who were devoted not to their own country, but to the ideology of Communism. And the very first person to be prominently subjected to these accusations turned out to be a State Department aide by the name of -- Alger Hiss. (And Hiss was not alone. Harry Dexter White of the Treasury Department was in this mix, as were others.) There is a reason to compare Huma Abedin to Alger Hiss. Why?

Because when Hiss's name first surfaced in an accusation by a then-Time magazine editor named Whittaker Chambers -- Chambers confessed to having been a Communist who had abandoned the faith, but had been in a Communist cell with Hiss -- all hell broke loose. Chambers fingered Hiss as not just an off-hours Communist believer but as someone who was actively engaged in espionage, passing U.S. government secrets to the Soviets. The controversy was huge. Hiss was accused, tried, and convicted and went to prison for a while, never to enter the government again. Decades later, in 1995 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Venona project files were released. A top secret project run by the FBI in the 1940s, it had dramatic proof in the form of decrypted Soviet telegrams that, yes indeed, Alger Hiss had in fact been a Soviet agent. At the time, then-New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan wrote of the revelation that: The complicity of Alger Hiss of the State Department seems settled. But Moynihan also observed something else, and it was a very important something else that has a direct bearing on the supporters of Huma Abedin and the critics of Michele Bachmann. Moynihan wrote: Belief in the guilt or innocence of Alger Hiss became a defining issue in American intellectual life. Parts of the American government had conclusive evidence of his guilt, but they never told. Moynihan, who had lived through the period, was exactly right. Alger Hiss -- and the larger issue Hiss symbolized of Soviet penetration of the American government -- became for years a "defining issue" -- and not only in American intellectual life but in American political life. As recent as the Bush administration, FBI agent Robert Hanssen was convicted of spying for the Soviets and Russian governments for 22 years. He was far from alone -- yet the indignation and fury was and has always been over Alger Hiss. Why? Because Alger Hiss was a New Deal liberal. He was, in the vernacular, plugged in. A Harvard Law School graduate, he was a protg of future Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter -- an FDR appointee. He clerked at the Supreme Court for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, was a government lawyer in FDR's Justice Department, a Senate staffer for a liberal Senator, a lawyer in FDR's Agriculture Department as run by progressive favorite Henry Wallace. He began working for the first of three FDR-Truman era Secretaries of State in 1936.

So when Whittaker Chambers stepped forward and spoke up -- the entire factual issue of whether Hiss was a spy for the Soviets got caught up in something else entirely. That something else? Defending the Washington Establishment. Defending the New Deal. Defending liberalism. Defending the good-ole-boy network. To show just how deep and public the adamant defense was of Hiss by the Establishment, there is this reply from Secretary of State Dean Acheson when Hiss was convicted in 1950: I do not intend to turn my back on Alger Hiss. Acheson went on to say anyone who had questions about his support for Hiss would have them answered by reading "the 25th Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew beginning with verse 34. Have you any other questions?" The verse Acheson was citing as a defense of Hiss and what was done to national security included the line: "I was in prison and you came to visit me." All well and good for the Christianity of Secretary Acheson. Not so good when making judgments on issues of national security. As a result of the kind of attitude exhibited by Acheson, those who were intent on a serious investigation of Chambers' charges were politically assaulted with a furious indignation. The idea that there could be anything amiss with Alger Hiss was received with John McCain-style angry and righteous indignation. And yet, there it was. A specific set of allegations from Whittaker Chambers that one of the most respected members of the Washington Establishment was in fact a Soviet spy. Hiss's alleged task: not simply to steal government documents but to influence American foreign policy with a tilt toward Communism. Which, it was recorded, Hiss did. As history records, the Michele Bachmann of the day was a young Republican Congressman named Richard Nixon. And what is particularly eerie here in the similarity department is not just the furiously negative treatment Nixon received -- just as Bachmann is receiving it today -- but the reason why he received it. In his 1962 book Six Crises Nixon discussed how and why he was so furiously disdained. The how? As soon as the Hiss case broke and well before a full bill of particulars was even available, much less open to close critical analysis, they [Hiss defenders] leaped to the defense of Alger Hiss -- and to a counterattack of

unparalleled venom and irrational fury on his accusers." The why? Nixon recounts being at one Washington dinner party after it became clear that Hiss had been stealing State Department documents and giving them to Chambers in the form of microfilm -- the famous "Pumpkin Papers" (so-named because Chambers had hidden them in a pumpkin on his Maryland farm). A New Deal lawyer at the dinner party was so angry with Nixon for outing Hiss he shouted: "I don't give a damn what the facts are. Even if Hiss admits he's guilty, these investigations are dangerous and will have a terrible and disastrous effect on the country -- because the net result is to cast reflection on the United Nations and all the other progressive aspects of the RooseveltTruman foreign policy." In other words, Hiss -- whose brother Donald was a law partner of Secretary of State Acheson -- was an establishment insider. A liberal. And to find anything amiss with Hiss was to cast a shadow on the credibility of liberalism itself, not to mention the Washington Establishment of the day. And in the late 1940s you never questioned the Establishment, as Nixon was essentially doing with his Hiss investigation. People with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood or any other Islamic organization who serve in the U.S. government should be viewed in precisely the same way as people who had ideological ties to Communism and hence the Soviet Union in the late 1940s. Or, indeed, for the duration of the Cold War. To wit: Times change, but human behavior never changes. The lies we tell ourselves can and do stay the same. And the idea that the enemy within -in this case Islamic supremacy -- does not exist is one of those lies, as the Ft. Hood shooting amply and tragically illustrated. What, after all, is Bachmann asking? She is not saying Huma Abedin is guilty of one thing. In her own words Bachmann says of her letter-writing colleagues that "we did not infer that she [Abedin] is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood or that she's working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood." Says Andy McCarthy in his NRO piece: Ms. Abedin is an adviser, not a policymaker. She gives advice to the secretary of state. Unless you were in the room with the two of them, you'd never be able to demonstrate what "direct impact" the adviser was having. Again, that's why people are supposed to be vetted before they get these sensitive positions and before they get access to the nation's secrets.

This was exactly one of the issues that was on the table with Alger Hiss. Why? Because as with Hiss and his Secretary of State boss, as with Abedin and hers. [U]nless you were in the room with the two of them, you'd never be able to demonstrate what "direct impact" the adviser was having. In the case of Alger Hiss, you had exactly the same problem. Former FDR Assistant Secretary of State Adolph Berle told the House UnAmerican Activities Committee investigating Hiss that in the fall of 1944 there was a difference of opinion in the State Department that the Russians were not going to be sympathetic and cooperativeand that (Berle) was pressing for a pretty clean-cut showdown when our position was strongest. At that time Mr. Hiss did take what you would call today the pro-Russian point of view. That was a cause for worry. Berle goes on to say that he, Berle, "got trimmed in that fight and as a result went to Brazil" -- which is to say Berle took an ambassadorial appointment as a result of losing a bureaucratic skirmish over the U.S. stance with Russia. A skirmish he had with Alger Hiss. Shortly thereafter, Alger Hiss was in Yalta as part of FDR's summit advisory team. Yalta, the summit now cited in history as a "sellout" to the Soviets. Then there's a considerable second problem involving the GOP Establishment and Islamic Supremacy. A problem outlined, as mentioned, by Andy McCarthy in this piece titled "The Wages of Willful Blindness: Is It Time for Defenders of Liberty to Abandon the GOP?" This problem? Problem number two? As McCarthy says, the question is "whether GOP leaders comprehend the stakes" involved in dealing with Islam. Remember here that McCarthy was the prosecutor of the "Blind Sheikh" Omar Abdel-Rahman. The architect of the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. McCarthy, who wrote a book called Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad, decidedly knows his subject. He writes: Here is the crucial part that you need to understand: The Blind Sheikh and his subordinates were not merely "violent extremists," seized by some sort of psychological problem. They were Islamic supremacists. Yes, their methods were barbaric; but that does not mean they were insane or irrational. Indeed, had that been the case, they would have been not guilty by reason of mental incapacity.

To the contrary, we proved that their actions were rationally motivated by Islamic supremacist ideology, an easily knowable interpretation of Islam, drawn directly from Muslim scripture, that commands its adherents to coerce societies into adopting sharia. Sharia is Islam's totalitarian framework for how societies are to be ruled. What McCarthy is saying in detail in this second piece, is that the GOP establishment has dropped the ball in the fight against radical Islam. What I would add here is that this is, sadly, not unusual. Exactly the same thing happened in the Cold War. The GOP Establishment turned accommodationist as the Cold War proceeded. Among other reasons, this retreat on Communism was why the moderate wing of the GOP fought first Barry Goldwater and then Ronald Reagan. Both men were "counterrevolutionaries" when it came to U.S. policy on the Soviets. As Reagan succinctly put it to his national security adviser Richard Allen, his strategy was: "We win. They lose." What's happening with this skirmish over Huma Abedin is no (Joe) McCarthyite effort to drive an innocent woman from public life. What's being asked, again to quote Andy McCarthy, is whether "the State Department's dramatic, Brotherhood-friendly policy shifts during Ms. Abedin's tenure as a top adviser to the State Department's boss" are the result of anything whatsoever reflecting Abedin's factual family connections with the ideals of the Muslim Brotherhood. Family connections that John McCain would surely describe as the influence of Abedin's "ways" as "shaped and enriched" by her father, mother, and brother. All Bachmann and company are asking, says McCarthy, "is completely consistent with national-security guidelines that an investigation into those policy shifts be undertaken." Bachmann and her colleagues were absolutely right to ask these questions. The real questions here are two: First: What is the role of Washington Establishment cronyism in the defense of Huma Abedin? Is John McCain the new Dean Acheson? Second: Is the Republican Establishment repeating the same failed strategy in dealing with Islamic Supremacism that they long adopted during the Cold War when facing Communism? A losing strategy that was finally reversed by Ronald Reagan? Reagan, of course, having been viewed for decades by the Republican Establishment as an "extremist" -- to quote former GOP President Gerald Ford from march of 1980. The furious attacks on Michele Bachmann over Huma Abedin -- by Senator McCain, Speaker Boehner and Chairman Rodgers -- certainly

seem to indicate nothing but trouble ahead. Why? Because they are inevitably backfiring. Raising the obvious question. With all that the question implies about both the Muslim Brotherhood -- and the Washington and Republican Establishments: Is Huma Abedin the new Alger Hiss? ___________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________

Der Spiegel pointed out the obvious: A certain role of

the Muslim Brotherhood in the transition process [to democracy] in Egypt seems acceptable to the Obama White House. It was early February 2011, the moment when the uprising that would oust Hosni Mubarak was bubbling over in Tahrir Square. The prominent German newsmagazine figured, who better to ask about the Muslim Brotherhood than the American political establishments resident foreign-policy genius, John McCain? So, the reporter asked him, does Obamas tolerance of the Muslim Brotherhood concern you? Senator Maverick shot back without hesitation: It concerns me so much that I am unalterably opposed to it. I think it would be a mistake of historic proportions. Senator McCain elaborated that he was deeply, deeply concerned that this whole movement [toward

democracy] could be hijacked by radical Islamic extremists. And what, he was specifically asked, is your assessment of the Muslim Brotherhood? McCain pulled no punches:
I think they are a radical group that, first of all, supports sharia law; that in itself is anti-democratic at least as far as women are concerned. They have been involved with other terrorist organizations and I believe that they should be specifically excluded from any tra nsition government.

In fact, so apprehensive was he over the Brotherhood and its sharia agenda that McCain was quick to brand Mohamed ElBaradei, the Nobel laureate, as a Brotherhood tool. Many of us watching developments at the time noted the apparent collusion between ElBaradei and the Brothers. McCain went farther: Oh yeah, I think its very clear that the scenario is very likely he could be their front man. Senator Straight Talk reasoned that since ElBaradei appeared to be on the same page as the Brotherhood, and was being hailed as a potential Mubarak successor despite having no following nor political influence in Egypt, we should assume that he must be in cahoots with the Brotherhood. It did not matter that ElBaradei

was a renowned international figure and an important leftist ally of President Obamas. So pernicious was the threat posed by the Brotherhood that, in McCains considered opinion, you just had to assume the worst. The Spiegel interview was classic McCain; the senator is never at a loss for bloviation. His professed anxiety, only a year ago, over the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as his blithe willingness to assume that ElBaradei must be an Islamist coconspirator, are worth remembering today. For the sage has suddenly decided that the Brothers unapologetic Islamic supremacists who say outright that they are on a grand jihad to destroy America and the West are a pretty swell lot, after all. Instead, McCain reserves his signature shoot first, think later ire for the target he has always preferred: conservatives. The Arizonan took to the Senate floor this week to lambaste five conservative members of the House who, unlike McCain, are actually serious about addressing threats the Brotherhood poses to American interests. McCains bipartisan Islamic democracy promoters seem content to keep burning through taxpayer trillions until the Brotherhood is finally running every government in the Middle East. To the contrary, the House conservatives Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Louie Gohmert (Texas), Trent Franks (Ariz.), Tom Rooney (Fla.), and Lynn Westmorland (Ga.) have

concluded that the Brotherhood needs to be regarded as the serious anti-American business that it is. Toward that end, the quintet is justifiably concerned that the Brotherhoods sharia agenda the one to which McCain used to be unalterably opposed is being abetted not just by some Nobel-toting Egyptian progressive, but by officials in highly sensitive positions inside the United States government. One official about whom they raise questions is Huma Abedin, deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Ms. Abedin has been an aide since she interned at the White House in 1996 and was assigned to the thenfirst ladys staff. The family tie for which she is best known is her husband, Anthony Weiner, the New York Democrat who resigned from Congress in disgrace last year. But it is Ms. Abedins parents and brother who have drawn the attention of the five House GOP members. They all have connections to the Muslim Brotherhood the organization itself or prominent members thereof. For pointing this out and merely asking the State Departments inspector general to look into it and report back to Congress which is part of the IGs duties under the statute that created his position McCain & Co. (i.e., his fans in the left-wing media and

his admirers in the Republican establishment) are screaming smear and McCarthyism. McCains antipathy toward conservatives (except during election years) is an old story. And it is no secret that he has long been smitten by Mrs. Clinton, whose transnational-progressive leanings mirror his own.

The Maverick is also a man about town towns like Tripoli. Back in 2009, you may recall, he was an honored guest in the compound of Libyas dictator, Moammar Qaddafi celebrating the former master terrorist as an important American ally against jihadist terror, helping to grease the wheels so the Obama administration could increase American aid that would bolster Qaddafis military. Yet in the blink of an eye, it seemed, McCain would later be railing that Qaddafi was a dyed-in-the-wool terrorist monster whose military had to be smashed by the United States in an undeclared, unauthorized, unprovoked war, if necessary so Libyans could be free to elect the Muslim Brotherhood and other assorted Islamic supremacists to their new Parliament. But the point is that McCain gets around. And when he does, the State Department is often his escort. Between

his globetrotting and his case of Hillary hauteur, the senator has gotten friendly over the years with Ms. Abedin, who is said to be smart, able, and quite charming. Ever the Maverick chivalrous to a fault . . . at least when the damsel in distress is an exotic, progressive sharia-democracy devotee rather than a conservative national-security worrywart from Minnesota. McCain has leapt to Ms. Abedins defense against these vicious House troglodytes. The senators tirade featured his trademark indignation, incoherence, and infatuation with immigrant success stories. (Ms. Abedin was born in Michigan, but no reason to let that get in the way of what is best about America.) McCain blasted Representative Bachmann and the others, falsely accusing them of doing to his friend Huma what he had actually done to ElBaradei, namely, implicating her as part of a nefarious conspiracy. To the contrary, the House members have drawn no such conclusions. Instead, they have pointed out the State Departments dramatic, Brotherhood-friendly policy shifts during Ms. Abedins tenure as a top adviser to the State Departments boss. They have asked completely consistent with national-security guidelines, to which Ill come shortly that an investigation into those policy shifts be undertaken. That investigation would include an inquiry into

whether Ms. Abedins family ties render her unsuitable for a position that involves access to classified information about the Brotherhood. The shrieks aside, this is not remotely unreasonable, nor is it an inquisition into Ms. Abedins decency and rectitude. When I was a prosecutor, the Justice Department would not have let me take a case that involved friends of my family. Its not that they didnt trust me; its that government is supposed to avoid the appearance of impropriety legitimacy hinges on the publics belief that actions are taken on merit, not burdened by palpable conflicts of interest. Regarding Ms. Abedins family ties, McCain rebukes his House colleagues for alleging that three members of Humas family are connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations. These sinister accusations, he insisted, rest solely on a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations of members of Humas family. Now, Im perfectly willing to believe that McCain may not know what the words unspecified and unsubstantiated mean. That, however, would not excuse his use of them in this context. The ties of Ms. Abedines father, mother, and brother to the Muslim Brotherhood are both specific and substantiated.

Ms. Abedins father, the late Syed Z. Abedin, was an Indian-born Islamic academic who founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs in Saudi Arabia. That institute was backed by the Muslim World League. As the Hudson Institutes Zeyno Baran relates, the MWL was started by the Saudi government in 1962 with Brotherhood members in key leadership positions. It has served as the principal vehicle for the propagation of Islamic supremacism by the Saudis and the Brotherhood. That ideology fuels the Islamic extremism that, only a year ago, had McCain so worried that he thought allowing the Brotherhood into the Egyptian-government mix would be a mistake of historic proportions.

McCains frivolous retort is that Professor Abedin died 20 years ago. That would be a great point if someone were accusing Ms. Abedin of being in her fathers institute or the MWL. It is irrelevant when the question is whether it is reasonable to infer Islamist sympathies from her parents allegiances not to make conclusive judgments about her, mind you, but to draw an inference that would merit deeper inquiry. That is standard fare in government background checks.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaedas emir, has been out of the Brotherhood for more than 30 years. Does that mean the Brotherhood is now irrelevant to his ideological outlook, or to the sympathies of his close associates? As it happens, the same MWL that supported Abedin pres institute also helped the Brotherhood establish the Muslim Students Association. The MSA is the foundation of the Brotherhoods American infrastructure, the gateway through which young Muslims join the Brotherhood after being steeped in the supremacist writings of Brotherhood theorists Hassan al-Banna (who founded the Brotherhood in the 1920s) and Sayyid Qutb (the animating influence of such jihadist eminences as Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden, and the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel Rahman). Speaking of which, it was through the MSA that Egypts new president, Mohammed Morsi, joined the Muslim Brotherhood. He was studying engineering in California at the time, the early Eighties. By her own account, Morsis wife, Nagla Ali Mahmoud, also joined. She became a leading member of a cognate outfit known as the Muslim Sisterhood. And it is here that we get to Huma Abedins mother, the Pakistaniborn academic Dr. Saleha Abedin. Dr. Abedin, too, has been a member of the Muslim

Sisterhood, which is essentially nothing more than the female version of the Brotherhood, according to Walid Shoebat, a former Brotherhood member who has renounced the organization. The Brotherhood is not only the font of Sunni supremacist ideology, it spearheads the international support network for Hamas, the terrorist organization that openly proclaims itself as the Brotherhoods Palestinian branch. According to one report, Dr. Abedin has on occasion represented herself as a delegate of the MWL. Moreover, as William Jacobson documents at Legal Insurrection, Dr. Abedin has led the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC), an Islamist organization that hews to the positions of Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Brotherhoods leading sharia jurist. Like Brotherhood entities, the IICWC defends such practices as female genital mutilation and child marriage, which find support in Islamic law and scripture. Sheikh Qaradawi, of course, is the Brotherhood eminence who promises that Islam will conquer Europe, we will conquer America. He is a vigorous supporter of Hamas, and his fatwas lionize suicide terrorism including the killing of Americans in Iraq. It is Qaradawi who brings us to Huma Abedins brother, Dr. Hassan Abedin. He has been a fellow at the Oxford Center for Islamic Studies in Great Britain.

Contemporaneously, Sheikh Qaradawi was a member of the Oxford Centers board of trustees. So was Omar Naseef, onetime secretary-general of the MWL as well as the founder of the Rabita Trust an Islamic charity notorious for funding jihadists and for having an al-Qaeda founder (Wael Hamza Julaidan) as one of its chief executives. These connections are not contrived or weightless like when the Left wanted to keep Samuel Alito off the Supreme Court because, 40 years ago, he was a member of Concerned Alumni of Princeton. Of course, knowing members of an organization whose goals include conquest of the West and destruction of Israel is not a crime. Nor is it a crime to have close relatives who are either members of, or associated with members of, such an organization. Again, however, no one is accusing Huma Abedin of a crime. The five House conservatives, instead, are asking questions that adults responsible for national security should feel obliged to ask: In light of Ms. Abedins family history, is she someone who ought to have a security clearance, particularly one that would give her access to top-secret information about the Brotherhood? Is she, furthermore, someone who may be sympathetic to aspects of the Brotherhoods agenda,

such that Americans ought to be concerned that she is helping shape American foreign policy?

Now, Senator McCain is no stranger to smear. No need to confirm that with Mr. ElBaradei; weve watched for years as he has slandered, for example, critics of his advocacy for illegal aliens as nativists seeking to reprise Jim Crow laws. Nevertheless, since McCain purports to be a tireless guardian of our security, one would think hed appreciate the distinction between a smear, on the one hand, and a routine application of security-clearance standards, on the other. The State Department is particularly wary when it comes to the category of foreign influence yes, it is a significant enough concern to warrant its own extensive category in background investigations. No criminal behavior need be shown to deny a security clearance; access to classified information is not a right, and reasonable fear of divided loyalties is more than sufficient for a clearance to be denied. The guidelines probe ties to foreign countries and organizations because hostile elements could target United States citizens to obtain protected information or could be associated with a risk of terrorism

note: The Brotherhood checks both these boxes. Thus, when someone is proposed for a sensitive position, it is necessary to consider conditions that could raise a security concern and may be disqualifying. These, the State Department tells us, include contact with a foreign family member, business or professional associate, friend or other person who is a citizen or resident in a foreign country if that contact creates a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, pressure, or coercion. Furthermore, in light of the Brotherhoods well-known abhorrence of the United States, it is also pertinent that States guidelines raise alarms if a person seeking access to classified information has an association or sympathy with people who seek to overthrow our government, or even with people who just seek to prevent Americans from exercising their constitutional rights. The Brotherhood does not just aim to upend our system; it would restrict our rights, such as free expression, to the extent they contradict sharia. In his diatribe, McCain speciously asserted that the GOP conservatives had failed to cite an action, a decision, or a public position that Huma has taken while at the State Department that showed she was either promoting anti-American activities within our government or having a direct impact on harmful policies. Of course, to assess a persons fitness for a

sensitive position, background investigators are not restricted to asking whether someone has committed some transgression. Their main job is to find out whether there are circumstances and competing allegiances that could tempt someone to take positions or actions that could harm the United States. That is why, for example, we have hearings before we confirm federal judges we dont just hand them a gavel and hope for the best. In addition, as McCain knows, Ms. Abedin is an adviser, not a policymaker. She gives advice to the secretary of state. Unless you were in the room with the two of them, youd never be able to demonstrate what direct impact the adviser was having. Again, thats why people are supposed to be vetted before they get these sensitive positions and before they get access to the nations secrets. Since Mrs. Clinton has been secretary of state, with Ms. Abedin as one of her top advisers, the State Department has strongly supported abandoning the federal governments prior policy against dealing with the Muslim Brotherhood. State, furthermore, has embraced a number of Muslim Brotherhood positions that undermine both American constitutional rights and our alliance with Israel. To name just a few manifestations

of this policy sea change: The State Department has an emissary in Egypt who trains operatives of the Brotherhood and other Islamist organizations in democracy procedures. The State Department announced that the Obama administration would be satisfied with the election of a Muslim Brotherhooddominated government in Egypt.

Secretary Clinton personally intervened to reverse a Bush-administration ruling that barred Tariq Ramadan, grandson of the Brotherhoods founder and son of one of its most influential early leaders, from entering the United States. The State Department has collaborated with the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, a bloc of governments heavily influenced by the Brotherhood, in seeking to restrict American free-speech rights in deference to sharia proscriptions against negative criticism of Islam. The State Department has excluded Israel, the worlds

leading target of terrorism, from its Global Counterterrorism Forum, a group that brings the United States together with several Islamist governments, prominently including its co-chair, Turkey which now finances Hamas and avidly supports the flotillas that seek to break Israels blockade of Hamas. At the forums kickoff, Secretary Clinton decried various terrorist attacks and groups; but she did not mention Hamas or attacks against Israel in transparent deference to the Islamist governments, which echo the Brotherhoods position that Hamas is not a terrorist organization and that attacks against Israel are not terrorism. The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer $1.5 billion dollars in aid to Egypt after the Muslim Brotherhoods victory in the parliamentary elections. The State Department and the Obama administration waived congressional restrictions in order to transfer millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinian territories notwithstanding that Gaza is ruled by the terrorist organization Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhoods Palestinian branch. The State Department and the administration recently hosted a contingent from Egypts newly elected

parliament that included not only Muslim Brotherhood members but a member of the Islamic Group (Gamaat al Islamia), which is formally designated as a foreign terrorist organization so that providing it with material support is a serious federal crime. The State Department has refused to provide Americans with information about the process by which it issued a visa to a member of a designated terrorist organization, about how the members of the Egyptian delegation were selected, or about what security procedures were followed before the delegation was allowed to enter our country. On a just-completed trip to Egypt, Secretary Clinton pressured General Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of the military junta currently governing the country, to surrender power to the newly elected parliament, which is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, and the newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi, who is a top Brotherhood official. She also visited with Morsi; immediately after his victory, Morsi proclaimed that his top priorities included pressuring the United States to release the Blind Sheikh. Quite apart from the Brotherhoods self-proclaimed grand jihad to destroy the United States, which the Justice Department proved in federal court during the 20078 Holy Land Foundation prosecution, the Brotherhoods supreme

guide, Mohammed Badie, publicly called for jihad against the United States in an October 2010 speech. After it became clear the Brotherhood would win the parliamentary election, Badie said the victory was a stepping stone to the establishment of a just Islamic caliphate. This is not an exhaustive account of Obamaadministration coziness with the Muslim Brotherhood. It is just some of the lowlights. Senator McCain is an incorrigible vacillator. It is to be expected that he has evolved from last years claimed opposition to the Brotherhood to a new position, more aligned with that of his friend Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration. Some of us, however, really are unalterably opposed to the Muslim Brotherhood. The five House conservatives are asking questions to which the State Departments own guidelines, to say nothing of common sense, demand answers. Answers not just about Huma Abedin but, far more significantly, about the governments policy toward virulently antiAmerican Islamists. Americans deserve nothing less even if the usual GOP spaghetti spines would prefer to give them nothing, period. Andrew C. McCarthy is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.

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Despite mounting evidence of close ties between the

Muslim Brotherhood and Huma Abedin, Secretary of State Clintons close aide, Republican congressional leaders particularly Senator John McCain and House Speaker John Boehner continue to target their ire not at the State Department but at Representative Michele Bachmann. Representative Bachmann is one of five House conservatives who have raised concerns about Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of our government. Glenn Beck reported Tuesday that GOP leadership is trying to extort an apology out of Bachmann by threatening to boot her from the House Intelligence Committee if she fails to submit. That got me to wondering: Any chance Speaker Boehner might take just a couple of minutes out of his

busy jihad against Bachmann to focus on how the State Department during Ms. Abedins tenure has cozied up to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhoods chief sharia jurist?

Sheikh Qaradawi is a promoter of jihadist terror. His fatwas endorse terrorist attacks against American personnel in Iraq as well as suicide bombing by both men and women against Israel. He is a leading supporter of Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhoods Palestinian branch. He also runs an umbrella organization called the Union for Good (sometimes referred to as the Union of Good), which is formally designated a terrorist organization under American law. The Union for Good was behind the Peace Flotilla that attempted to break our ally Israels blockade of the terrorist organization Hamas (the Muslim Brotherhoods Palestinian branch) in 2010. Thats rather interesting at least to me, though apparently not to Speaker Boehner because Huma Abedins mother, Saleha, who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhoods female division (the Muslim Sisterhood), is a major figure in not one but two Union for Good components. The first is the International Islamic Council for Dawa and

Relief (IICDR). It is banned in Israel for supporting Hamas under the auspices of the Union for Good. Then theres the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC) an organization that Dr. Saleha Abedin has long headed. Dr. Abedins IICWC describes itself as part of the IICDR. And wouldnt you know it, the IICWC charter was written by none other than . . . Sheikh Qaradawi, in conjunction with several self-proclaimed members of the Muslim Brotherhood. In McCainWorld, these are what are known as a few unspecified and unsubstantiated associations. But I digress. Clearly, these significant Muslim Brotherhood connections are of scant interest to Speaker Boehner, who has decided the problem is not the Brotherhood connections but the people who are shedding light on the Brotherhood connections. Nevertheless, since Boehner purports to be all about cracking down on wasteful government spending, at least when hes not signing off on deals to extend President Obamas credit card by another trillion or three, I thought I might ask whether the State Departments Fulbright Scholar Program aroused his curiosity ever so slightly. Fulbright, by its own account, is the governments flagship program in international educational exchange, promoting mutual understanding between

the U.S. and other countries. In the 20102011 academic year the year of the Union for Goods Freedom Flotilla, if you need a time marker one Fulbright scholarship was awarded to a lucky chemistry student from Qatar. Her name is Siham al-Qaradawi, and she just happens to be the daughter of Sheikh Qaradawi.

Now, besides despising America and having lots of global academic connections (at least in countries where hes not banned), the sheikh happens to be a very wealthy man the sharia-advisory business can be very profitable. And while the sheikhs daughter is said to be an exceptional chemist, the world is full of exceptional chemists. How is it that Qaradawis daughter gets the State Department prize? Im just wondering, and wondering if Speaker Boehner is wondering. Oh, one last thing. Obviously, Huma Abedin does not make Obama-administration or State Department policy. Policy is made by President Obama and Secretary Clinton, and they hardly needed Ms. Abedin in order to have pro-Islamist leanings. Nevertheless, since Secretary Clintons tenure began,

with Huma Abedin serving as a top adviser, the United States has aligned itself with the Muslim Brotherhood in myriad ways. To name just a few (the list is by no means exhaustive): Our government reversed the policy against formal contacts with the Brotherhood; funded Hamas; continued funding Egypt even after the Brotherhood won the elections; dropped an investigation of Brotherhood organizations in the U.S. that were previously identified as co-conspirators in the case of the Holy Land Foundation financing Hamas; hosted Brotherhood delegations in the United States; issued a visa to a member of the Islamic Group (a designated terrorist organization) and hosted him in Washington because he is part of the Brotherhoods parliamentary coalition in Egypt; announced that Israel should go back to its indefensible 1967 borders; excluded Israel, the worlds leading target of terrorism, from a counterterrorism forum in which the State Department sought to partner with Islamist governments that do not regard attacks on Israel as terrorism; and pressured Egypts pro-American military government to surrender power to the anti-American Muslim Brotherhood parliament and president just elected by Egypts predominantly anti-American population. So I was hoping maybe the speaker could explain to us: Hypothetically, if Huma Abedin did have a bias in

favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, and if she were actually acting on that bias to try to tilt American policy in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood, what exactly would the State Department be doing differently? Andrew C. McCarthy is the author, most recently, of The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America.