The terrorist now subject to a "kill or capture" order was welcomed in D.C. immediately after 9/11. He is far from the only terrorist welcomed by the CMSA.
When a report challenging our national security policy of ignoring Islamic supremacism through Islamic law was released during a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday (disclosure: I was one of the co-authors of the report, titled: “Shariah: The Threat to America”), among the chief critics were representatives from the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association (CMSA).
This group, which has been briefing both Democrat and Republican congressional leadership in recent months, claiming that there is nothing inherently violent in Islamic law, has a very poor history of embracing Islamic radicals — even al-Qaeda terrorists.
Immediately after 9/11, the CMSA began holding Friday afternoon prayer services on Capitol Hill. Who did they choose to lead them in their prayers? Al-Qaeda sheikh Anwar al-Awlaki, who is currently subject to a kill or capture order issued by President Obama. In fact, video of al-Awlaki preaching to the CMSA was included in the 2002 documentary, Muhammad: Legacy of a Prophet. (That video clip is available to view via the Investigative Project on Terrorism.)
Identified in that clip listening to the al-Qaeda cleric: Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR); then-CAIR communications specialist Randall “Ismail” Royer, who is currently serving a 20-year federal prison sentence on terrorism charges; and CMSA founder and former president Jameel Alim Johnson.
Jameel Johnson is no stranger to PJM readers. In December 2007, I reported exclusively here on an Islamic conference on Capitol Hill that had been scheduled by Johnson, as chief of staff from Congressman Gregory Meeks. The conference was cancelled at the last minute by the House of Representatives sergeant-at-arms when it was discovered that it was to feature a long list of Islamic radicals, some of whom were known to be on the terror watch list.
So when the CMSA leadership whine to the media about anyone offering an alternative view to our failed foreign and domestic policy of submitting to Islamic radicalism, we must look at the record of CMSA as an organization, and its leadership as individuals. They have given radicals and terrorists, such as al-Awlaki, a voice on Capitol Hill.
This infiltration of our highest government institutions is not limited to the CMSA.