CAIR Urges Trump to Drop Anti-Islam Conspiracy Theorist Frank Gaffney from Transition Team

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on President-Elect Donald Trump to drop anti-Islam conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney as an adviser on national security for his transition team. (#DropGaffney)

SEE:Meet Frank Gaffney, the Anti-Muslim Gadfly Reportedly Advising Trump's Transition Team (Washington Post)
Donald Trump Considers Another Anti-Muslim Conspiracy Theorist for His Team

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has identified Gaffney as an anti-Muslim extremist and his Center for Security Policy (CSP) as a hate group. According to the SPLC, CSP is "a conspiracy-oriented mouthpiece for the growing anti-Muslim movement in the United States."

Of Gaffney himself, the SPLC says he is "gripped by paranoid fantasies about Muslims destroying the West from within, suspicious that Barack Obama was actually born in Kenya, and a proponent of a new version of the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee to root out suspected Muslim subversives."

SPLC Designated Hate Groups:Center for Security Policy
SPLC:Frank Gaffney

"Discredited conspiracy theorists like Frank Gaffney should not come within 100 miles of any administration that seeks to maintain credibility on the world stage or to uphold longstanding American values of religious diversity and inclusion," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "With these kinds of associations, President-elect Trump is dividing America at a time when we are most in need of unity."

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Backgrounder on Frank Gaffney:

Gaffney is a notorious anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist who has claimed that "most of the Muslim-American groups of any prominence in America are now known to be, as a matter of fact, hostile to the United States and its Constitution."

He is a key promoter of the bizarre conspiracy theory that Muslims in public service are infiltrating the government on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Gaffney has questioned "whether Mr. Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States," claimed the Missile Defense Agency logo is part of a "worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam," claimed an aide to Hillary Clinton was a secret Muslim Brotherhood operative, was a key witness for the plaintiffs in a controversial lawsuit seeking to block construction of a Tennessee mosque, promoted the debunked claim that Dearborn, Mich., is a "ghetto enclave in which it's Muslim-only," and hosted "white supremacist" Jared Taylor on his "Secure Freedom" radio program.

He has in the past:

* Suggested that Saddam Hussein was behind the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.
* Claimed Gen. David Petraeus, commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, was submitting to Islamic law when he condemned the burning of a Quran by a Florida pastor.
* Objected to Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and Andre Carson (D-Ind.) serving on the House Intelligence Committee because they are Muslim.
* Accused Pope Francis of having "rabidly anti-American" views after the pope said it is "not Christian" to urge the deportation of undocumented immigrants and to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico.

Gaffney was banned from the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in 2011 after accusing fellow Republicans of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, cited Gaffney in his anti-Muslim manifesto.

Gaffney's staff attorney, David Yerushalmi, has advocated outlawing the practice of Islam in America and is the key promoter of anti-Islam bills in state legislatures nationwide.

When leading GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump proposed a ban on all Muslims entering the United States, he quoted from a sham survey commissioned by Gaffney's organization.

Earlier this week, CAIR decried the appointment of anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist and White nationalist "alt-right" extremist Stephen Bannon as chief strategist and senior counselor to President-elect Donald Trump.

Bannon hosted Gaffney on his Sirius XM radio show "Breitbart News Daily" 29 times.

SEE: The Anti-Muslim Extremists Steve Bannon Thinks are Experts on Islam

CAIR recently updated its site with information about the extremist anti-Muslim views of a number of potential Trump administration appointees.

CAIR Islamophobia Monitor:Islamophobia and the Potential Trump Team

The Washington-based Muslim civil rights group is monitoring a troubling spike in anti-Muslim and racist incidents since the November 8 election.

Muslim community members who believe their rights have been violated are being asked to contact local police and CAIR's Civil Rights Department at 202-742-6420 or by filing a report at: https://www.cair.com/civil-rights/report-an-incident/view/form.html