***Article first published by 'WND' on Aug. 27, 2011***

Infiltration of the federal government by members of the radical Muslim Brotherhood is worse than some have warned recently, says a former FBI special agent in Washington.

The agent confirmed that at least three operatives of the Egypt-based Brotherhood – whose credo is “Jihad is our way and death in the cause of Allah is our dream” – have penetrated the Obama administration.

The shocking charge was first leveled by Muslim reformer Tarek Fatah during a recent speech in Toronto.

“When someone says that there is penetration of jihadi Islamists within society, do not dismiss it as some right-wing, xenophobic, racist rant,” warned Fatah, a Canadian journalist.

“Today in the White House, there are three members of the Muslim Brotherhood that influence Obama’s policy,” he told the audience gathered for an IdeaCity conference. “One is Rashad Hassan, who is the American ambassador to the 52-nation Organization of Islamic (Conference).”

Fatah also named “Dalia Mogahed, who writes (Obama’s) speeches, who comes from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; and another woman, an academic, (who) was appointed in that circle.”

Former FBI special agent John Guandolo says Obama’s ties to agents for the Muslim Brotherhood are even more extensive.

“The level of penetration in the last three administrations is deep,” he said. “For this president, it even goes back to his campaign with Muslim Brotherhood folks working with him then.”

Equally alarming, the Brotherhood also has placed several operatives and sympathizers within key positions in Homeland Security and the U.S.
military, notes Guandolo, a former Marine Corps officer.

The veteran federal agent says such infiltration threatens national security, because the U.S. leadership of the international Brotherhood has outlined a secret plan to “destroy” the U.S. and other Western governments “from within.”

After the 9/11 attacks, he says the FBI discovered the plan written in Arabic among documents seized from the basement of a prominent Brotherhood leader living in a Washington suburb.

Guandolo says the stated Muslim Brotherhood strategy for change “from within” includes the installation of loyal Brothers into political office.

President Obama’s top Muslim ambassador, Rashad Hussain, has raised suspicions. He is U.S. special envoy to the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a powerful international group headquartered in Saudi Arabia and closely aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Before first joining the White House as a lawyer, Hussain regularly spoke to Brotherhood front groups and defended Brotherhood leaders like Sami al-Arian. Hussain at first denied defending the convicted terrorist, claiming he was misquoted, but then recanted after Politico.com produced a tape-recording of his remarks.

Recently, he has been overseas encouraging devotion to Islam, including in terror hotspots like Afghanistan.

In fact, Hussain has told Afghans the antidote to Islamic violence “is Islam itself.”

“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,” he said during a recent speech in Kabul.

Hussain, a devout Muslim, says promotion of the Muslim faith is “key” to the administration’s strategy to turn Muslims away from violence.

“We see that as one of the key elements of a strategy to address this type of violence,” he said.

The strategy is at odds with what the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission recently recommended in their follow-up report on homegrown terror, “Assessing the Terrorist Threat: A Report of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s National Security Preparedness Group.”

The study found that Islam was motivating terrorists not just abroad, but inside America’s Muslim community. And it scolded U.S. leaders for pretending religion is not a factor in growing violence.

John Guandolo

Still, Hussain insists: “When it comes to the problem of violent extremism, Islam is not the problem.”

Hussain helped draft Obama’s conciliatory Cairo speech to Muslims. Also helping with the president’s speeches and policies toward Muslims is Mogahed, whose pro-Islamist statements have been posted on the Muslim Brotherhood’s website, ikhwanweb.com.

Obama appointed the hijab-wearing Mogahed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. On a British television program, Islam Channel, Mogahed defended Shariah law, the barbaric Islamic legal code that treats women as second-class citizens.

Muslim women actually “associate gender justice or justice for women with Shariah compliance,” she argued. “It is ‘only a small fraction’ that associate Shariah with ‘oppression of women.'”

She added that Muslims should work to integrate Islamic law into public law.
Another Brotherhood-tied figure influencing the White House is Azizah al-Hibri.

Obama this June appointed her to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. A Muslim professor, al-Hibri is also the granddaughter of a sheik, who claims the Saudi criminal justice system is more moral than the American one because it accepts blood money from murderers.

Al-Hibri herself has proclaimed: “Islamic fiqh (law) is deeper and better than Western codes of law.”

She served on the advisory board of the American Muslim Council and made joint appearances with its leader Abdurahman Alamoudi. Now defunct, the AMC was a front group for the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, and Alamoudi was the Brotherhood’s top leader in America. He is now behind bars as one of al-Qaida’s top fundraisers in America.

Al-Hibri has also made appearances at Islamic Society of North America conferences. The Justice Department says ISNA is a Brotherhood front and recently named the group an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to provide material support to Hamas terrorists.

Guandolo identified several other Brotherhood-connected agents of influence – all of whom are just as politically savvy and moderate sounding – who have worked their way into government positions, including:

Guandolo blames the advances Brotherhood figures on political correctness and lax vetting at government agencies.

Even at the FBI, he notes, an Iranian-born Muslim has taken over the agency’s weapons of mass destruction program.

Stung by workplace discrimination lawsuits by Arab and Muslim employees, the FBI has come under pressure to hire more Arab and Muslim agents and language specialists and promote existing ones, while clearing them for higher security levels, according to the best-selling book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.”

The book cites internal FBI records showing the agency has been sued by no fewer than 14 Arab and Muslim employees since 9/11. Some of the lawsuits have been solicited or aided by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, another Muslim Brotherhood front group. The FBI in 2008 cut off formal outreach with CAIR and its branch offices.

“This is happening as we remain silent. And I say that as a liberal Democrat who worked and campaigned for Barack Obama,” said Fatah, a Pakistan-born journalist and activist who founded the moderate Muslim Canadian Congress to fight the spread of “Islamofascism.”

“Muslim Mafia” also has prompted a lawsuit from CAIR over the acquisition by the authors of CAIR documents.

In the lawsuit, CAIR, a self-described Muslim civil-rights group, does not defend itself against the book’s claims, and the FBI has seized the CAIR material from the Washington law office of one of the attorneys for the authors. A previous filing in the case revealed a federal grand jury is investigating CAIR for possible violation of laws that ban financial dealings with terrorist groups or countries under U.S. sanctions.

As WND reported, CAIR’s complaint seeks to expunge all copies of “Muslim Mafia” in an attempt, according to defense lawyers, to eliminate evidence that could lead to criminal prosecution.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The CAIR legal attack on WND’s author is far from over. WND needs your help in supporting the defense of “Muslim Mafia” co-author P. David Gaubatz, as well as his investigator son Chris, against CAIR’s lawsuit. The book’s revelations have led to formal congressional demands for three different federal investigations of CAIR. In the meantime, however, someone has to defend these two courageous investigators who have, at great personal risk, revealed so much about this dangerous group. Although WND has procured the best First Amendment attorneys in the country for their defense, we can’t do it without your help. Please donate to WND’s Legal Defense Fund now.