When GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump bluntly said the U.S. needs to stop bringing in more Muslims until Congress can figure out how to deal with domestic Islamic terror, like the San Bernardino, California, shooting that left 14 dead and 21 wounded, a firestorm of criticism descended.
Despite the fact that several top constitutional experts said the idea actually is legal, and even has been used in the past, including as recently as 1980 under President Jimmy Carter, most critics dumped scorn on Trump.
One of those was fellow GOP presidential candidate New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who told a Philadelphia station, "It's the difference between somebody who has experience protecting Americans and someone who doesn't, and I spent seven years of my life protecting America."
He said it would be better to increase National Security Agency surveillance, continuing, "This is the kind of thing that people say when they have no experience and don't know what they're talking about."
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However, polls on Thursday reveal that many Republicans are expressing support for Trump's plan to engage Muslims, and rejecting Christie's, which created controversy for him several years ago in his state of New Jersey.
That was when he appointed a Muslim to the state judiciary, and investigators revealed that the newly appointed judge was a "mouthpiece for radical Islamists" who had worked to defend high-profile terror-support suspects following the 9/11 Islamic terror on New York and Washington.
The Christie dispute arose again as recently as a few months ago when the progressive Huffington Post reported on several GOP candidates commenting whether Muslims should be president.
The report lauded the now-judge, Sohail Mohammed, for helping "the FBI understand Muslim culture, and after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he spoke out against the government's targeting of Muslim and Middle Eastern individuals."
Mohammed also served as general counsel to the American Muslim Union, which at one point claimed that a "Zionist commando orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks," investigators said.
Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for Christie, had said at the time, "Sohail worked effectively and very appropriately with the U.S. attorney's office (of New Jersey) and the FBI in bridging relations and providing outreach with the Muslim community. … And he did it at a time when federal law enforcement in New Jersey needed someone like him to do that."
In fact, a video shows Christie's strong support for Mohammed at his nomination.
See it:
"This Shariah law business is crap," Christie scolded. "It's just crazy, and I'm tired of dealing with the crazies. It's just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background."
The Christie campaign did not respond to a WND request for comment on Thursday.
But Breitbart reported at that time that Christie was among the "inductees"Â on a list chosen by the terror-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations as those who "deserve recognition for their outstanding contributions to pushing back against Islamophobic trends in 2011 and 2012."
Research on the issue revealed much concern being expressed by critics of the governor over his choices.
At the Investigative Project on Terrorism, officials reported that one of Sohail Muhammed's clients was Mohammad Qatanani, the head of a mosque who "has a history of Hamas support and was related by marriage to a leading Hamas operative in the West Bank."
Qatanani at the time was fighting efforts by the Department of Homeland Security to have him removed from the U.S. for failing, when he applied for a green card in 1999, to reveal a conviction "in an Israeli military court for being a Hamas member and providing support to the terrorist group."
The investigators said "oddly" Christie sided with Qatanani against the federal government efforts.
"As general counsel to the American Muslim Union, Mohammed often represented clients subject to government allegations concerning terrorists," the report said. It continued that in that role, "Mohammed bucked several high-profile terror support prosecutions. After authorities shut down the Holy Land Foundation near Dallas for alleged Hamas support in 2001, Mohammed told the Record of Bergen County, N.J., that the government was unjustly singling out Muslim organizations."
People see this as another example of how heavy-handed the administration has been thus far," he said at the time.
Continued the report:
Additionally, Mohammed publicly defended Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian following a 2003 indictment which alleged he was a North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Appearing on MSNBC, Mohammed criticized the fact that it took years of investigation before the indictment was issued. "It all points out to the distrust that the Muslim community have, which is this is nothing but a witch-hunt," he said. "This is nothing but a politically motivated indictment, and all you are waiting for is the right opportunity to indict the person, the climate is right."
Al-Arian, a longtime professor at the University of South Florida, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide goods and services to the PIJ. In sentencing him, a federal judge said the evidence made it clear he was "a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. You were on the board of directors and an officer, the secretary. Directors control the actions of an organization, even the PIJ; and you were an active leader."
In addition to defending accused terrorists, Mohammed is defensive about acknowledging their motivations. He was critical of a case brought by Christie's office when the governor was U.S. attorney. The Fort Dix defendants were accused, and later convicted, of plotting a mass casualty attack on the New Jersey military base as an act of jihad. Mohammed objected to the use of the phrase "Islamic militants" in the government's case.
Further, investigators discovered Qatanani, the client of Christie's pick to be a judge, "identified himself as being associated with the Muslim Brotherhood during his time in Jordan in an interview with ICE and FBI agents."
"This is just the latest example of Christie's embrace of Islamists that should be shunned, not exalted," the report said.
The project report continued, "The most notorious of the committee members is Mohammad Qatanani. He was arrested in Israel in 1993 because of his links to Hamas, including the fact that his brother-in-law was a Hamas official in the West Bank. Qatanani told the Israelis that he had been a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood but left in 1991 because he had limited time for this project. The Israeli government says he admitted to being a Hamas member and was convicted, but he was released as part of a plea bargain."
Islam experts Steve Emerson and Daniel Pipes at the time wrote in National Review under the headline, "Chris Christie's Islam Problem," "The governor of New Jersey has a problem, specifically an Islam problem, that can and should get in the way of his possible ascent to higher office. Time and again he has sided with Islamist forces against those who worry about safeguarding American security and civilization."
They pointed out that in 2010 Derek Fenton burned three pages of a Quran at a 9/11 memorial. His employer, New Jersey Transit, then obtained approval from Christie to fire him.
"That kind of intolerance is something I think is unacceptable. So I don't have any problem with him being fired," Christie said, the report said. The ACLU successfully fought to have Fenton reinstated.
Said the commentary, "In short, Christie has hugged a terrorist-organization member, abridged free-speech rights, scorned concern over Islamization, and opposed law-enforcement counterterrorism efforts. Whenever an issue touching on Islam arises, Christie takes the Islamist side against those – the DHS, state sentors, the NYPD, even the ACLU – who worry about lawful Islamism eroding the fabric of American law."
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