
Saleha Abedin greeting former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Saudi Arabia
Republican Sen. John McCain's public defense of the patriotism of a top Muslim aide to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears to have been premature.
A newly released State Department email involving former Clinton deputy chief of staff Huma Abedin reveals the pro-jihadist Muslim Brotherhood's influence in the Obama administration was much deeper than even Abedin's critics first believed.
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The June 2009 email shows that Abedin received official government advice from her radical Muslim mother, Saleha Abedin – an agent for the Muslim World League, a Saudi stronghold for the Brotherhood – concerning the Obama administration's appointment of the U.S. envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 56 Muslim nations and the Palestinian territories.
Saleha Abedin notes in the email to her daughter, which she sent from an official Saudi government address, that she obtained a recommendation for the high-level position from her son, Hassan Abedin, who also has strong Brotherhood ties and once expressed an interest in "spreading Islam to the West." She also stated that she would reach out to Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the then-secretary general of the OIC. Huma Abedin, in turn, forwarded the heavily redacted State Department email to her personal email account, records show.
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The explosive document was released in response to a federal lawsuit filed by Washington watchdog group Judicial Watch against the State Department.
Saleha Abedin has blamed America for 9/11 and advocated for Shariah law provisions condoning marital rape, child marriage, female genital mutilation, domestic violence, and even lashings and stonings for women accused of adultery.
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Huma worked for her mother's Saudi-sponsored Islamic journal through at least 2008. She is listed as "assistant editor" in the 2002 issue in which her mother suggested the United States was doomed to be attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, because of "sanctions" it leveled against Iraq and other "injustices" allegedly committed against the Muslim world.
Several months after Huma Abedin received her mother's staffing guidance, President Obama appointed Brotherhood-affiliated Rashad Hussain as his special envoy to the OIC and the Muslim world in February 2010.
Before joining the administration, Hussain regularly spoke to Brotherhood front groups and defended Brotherhood leaders such as Sami al-Arian. (Hussain first denied defending the convicted terrorist, claiming he was misquoted, but he recanted after Politico produced a tape-recording of his remarks.)
"Hussain has long been involved with various Muslim Brotherhood fronts," states a 51-page pamphlet on the Brotherhood by the Center for Security Policy.
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As OIC envoy, Hussian appeared more interested in promoting Islam than representing U.S. interests to the Muslim world in a war on Islamic terror.
"I am of the opinion that one of the strongest tools that you can use to counter radicalization and violent extremism is Islam itself, because Islam rejects violent extremism," Hussain said in a speech in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2011.
Hussain helped draft Obama's 2009 speech in Cairo. Banned Muslim Brotherhood leaders were invited to the event.
U.S. officials say the State Department email is a "smoking gun" proving McCain acted prematurely in July 2012 when he took to the Senate floor to scold several Republican colleagues, led by former Rep. Michele Bachmann, who called for an investigation into the possibility Huma Abedin used her position to promote the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood within the U.S. government.
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"This shows that Sen. McCain was provably wrong when he took to the floor and cleared Huma's name," said a former U.S. official familiar with the security issues surrounding Abedin's employment.
"It shows that Hillary Clinton did in fact place someone high up at State who was taking direction from a senior Islamist radical," he added, "and that the Muslim Brotherhood was actually inside the wire at State."
During his speech McCain, who could not be reached for comment, called Abedin "my friend" and denounced congressional critics who alleged she was unduly influencing U.S. foreign policy at the State Department in favor of the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist causes.
He called such accusations "scurrilous," while strenuously defending both Abedin and her family against charges that he suggested were "based on nothing more than fear of who they are and ignorance of what they stand for." He insisted there was no evidence they had undue influence on U.S. policies.
"These allegations about Huma Abedin are nothing less than an unwarranted, unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American and a loyal public servant," McCain asserted.
"I have every confidence in her loyalty to our country, and everyone else should as well," the Arizona senator added. "All Americans owe her a debt of gratitude for many years of superior public service.
"I hope these ugly and unfortunate attacks on her can be immediately brought to an end and put behind us before any further damage is done to an American of genuine patriotism and love of country."
The Muslim Brotherhood is a worldwide jihadist movement whose credo states: "Jihad is our way, and death for the glory of Allah is our greatest ambition."

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signing autographs with Saleha Abedin in Saudi Arabia
In a 2004 raid of a Brotherhood operative's home in the D.C. suburb of Annandale on suspicion of terrorist activities, the FBI uncovered the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood's strategic plan to infiltrate the U.S. government and sabotage it "from within." The stated goal of the document: turn America into an Islamic nation.
In 2010, Huma Abedin arranged for her boss Clinton to speak alongside Abedin's hijab-wearing mother at an all-girls college in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. According to a transcript of the speech, Clinton said Americans have to do a better job of getting past "the stereotypes and the mischaracterizations" of the oppressed Saudi woman. She also assured the audience of burqa-clad girls that not all American girls go "around in a bikini bathing suit." Clinton pledged to further work with her mother on issues in the U.S.
In 2011, Clinton attended and co-chaired an event with OIC chief İhsanoğlu to combat "Islamophobia." In her speech, Hillary said, "We are pursuing a new approach based on concrete steps to fight intolerance wherever it occurs."
The new approach called for prohibitions on anti-Islamic hate crimes and discrimination.
Ihsanoblu at the same time had been working with the Council on American-Islamic Relations "to consider establishing a international legal instrument to criminalize acts of Islamophobia," including adopting "legal measures against the defamation of religious icons," including publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
The OIC leader had met with CAIR executive director Nihad Awad to discuss the implementation of blasphemy laws during visits at CAIR's headquarters in Washington, according to "Muslim Mafia."
Awad and Saleha Abedin also are close, and Abedin has joined the OIC and CAIR in their campaign against so-called Islamophobia. In 1996, Awad introduced the elder Abedin during a Washington press conference to support Islamic laws concerning women.