Muslim Sisterhood Leader Influencing U.S. Elections?

By Shoebat Foundation on December 24, 2013 in Blog, General

In comments recently attributed to Muslim Sisterhood leader Naglaa Mahmoud – who is also the wife of ousted Egyptian president Mohammed Mursi – it might be worth taking a look at one excerpt we hadn’t really examined before. It has to do with her alleged claim that Barack Obama’s election and re-election was aided by the Muslim Brotherhood and that Hillary could benefit from similar assistance in 2016.

Naglaa Mahmood and Mohammed Mursi.

Here is a quote about Mahmoud’s comments, by an Arabic reporter, via Mehwar TV (translated here):

Mahmoud further stated that “Hillary depends on us tremendously to help her succeed in the coming presidential elections, just as we helped Barack Obama win twice.” She is quite the looney bin to believe she helped Obama win.
When asked about her relationship with Michelle Obama, Mahmoud said it is very good but it never developed to the point of close friendship, like with Hillary.

In that excerpt, the reporter mocked Mahmoud’s claims, implying that she was simply bloviating and had no such influence.
[Note: Before proceeding, it is worth noting that the number of credible Arabic sources that are reporting on the quotes attributed to Mahmoud is very significant. According to El-Aph, even Mursi's brother and son are not denying she made the comments, only that she isn't doing what she said she was doing and that it is the current Egyptian government that is committing the crimes. It is also not insignificant that Anatolia Press has not denied Mahmoud made the claims and that Egypt's Attorney General has escalated the complaint to the Homeland Security sector.]
Let us consider a separate track and seek where it leads.
In a 2011 New York Times article by Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt, it was revealed that the FBI had unsealed the details of a case that implicated Pakistan’s intelligence agency in attempts to influence such elections:

Pakistan’s military, including its powerful spy agency, has spent $4 million over two decades in a covert attempt to tilt American policy against India’s control of much of Kashmir — including funneling campaign donations to members of Congress and presidential candidates, the F.B.I. claimed in court papers unsealed Tuesday.
The allegations of a long-running plan to influence American elections and foreign policy come at a time of deep tensions between the United States and Pakistan — and in particular its spy agency — amid the fallout over the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden at a compound deep inside Pakistan on May 2.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation made the allegations in a 43-page affidavit filed in connection with the indictment of two United States citizens on charges that they failed to register with the Justice Department as agents of Pakistan, as required by law. One of the men, Zaheer Ahmad, is in Pakistan, but the other, Syed Fai, lives in Virginia and was arrested on Tuesday.

The article goes on to explain that the entity Fai worked for – the Kashmiri American Council (KAC) – was based in Washington, D.C. and was funded in large part by Pakistan’s Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI). The part about the story that could make Mahmoud’s claims more relevant and worthy of further investigation involves KAC’s contributions to political campaigns in the U.S.
The FBI reported in December of 2011 that Fai pleaded guilty to related charges.
How they did it…

Law enforcement officials said Pakistan used a network of at least 10 unnamed straw contributors, which Mr. Ahmad helped organize, to make the campaign contributions and donate the bulk of the Kashmiri Center’s annual operating budget. The ISI would reimburse them — or their families in Pakistan — for the donations, the officials said.
Most of the straw donors who made contributions to the Kashmiri Center and to politicians in the United States were identified only by code in the court document, though the investigation was continuing and eight F.B.I. field offices executed 17 or 18 search warrants related to other suspected donors on Tuesday, an official said…
…a search in Federal Elections Commission databases for contributions by Mr. Fai showed that he has made more than $20,000 in campaign contributions over the past two decades. The bulk of his donations went to two recipients: the National Republican Senatorial Committee and Representative Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana.
Mr. Fai made numerous — though smaller — contributions to Democrats as well, including to Representatives James P. Moran of Virginia, Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio and Gregory W. Meeks of New York, and $250 donations to the 2000 and 2008 presidential campaigns of Al Gore and Barack Obama.

Let’s get back to Naglaa Mahmoud. What we have at this point is a claim attributed to her that the Brotherhood helped Barack Obama get elected twice and that “Hillary depends on (them) tremendously” for 2016.
The next question is ‘how’ a group like the Brotherhood might do this? In politics, it’s almost always about following the money.
Back in August, after the ouster of Mursi as president, we relayed the claims – published by Almesryoon – that Egypt’s Attorney General was investigating “a number of complaints” that the Muslim Brotherhood accepted ‘bribes’ from the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.
A document surfaced at the time – seen below – that showed Brotherhood leaders under Mursi were being paid significant ‘gifts’ in U.S. dollars. These annual payments were found to be more than $750,000 for each recipient, reaching tens of millions of dollars collectively.

Qatar Document indicates Bribes in U.S. Dollars

In order to test the veracity of the claims attributed to Mahmoud – that Hillary was planning to count on her (Brotherhood / Sisterhood) in 2016 – consider what is known. During the time that these ‘gifts’ were meted out, the Muslim Brotherhood controlled Egypt; the ‘gifts’ were in U.S. dollars; the U.S. Embassy is an arm of the U.S. State Department; the State Department was led by Hillary Clinton at the time; and the U.S. administration held an extremely pro-Muslim Brotherhood stance.
If Brotherhood leaders were receiving monetary ‘gifts’ that collectively reached sums in the tens of millions of dollars, what were the ‘gifts’ buying?
Consider what happened with the 2009 stimulus package. Was it not about money laundering?
Via AWR Hawkins at Breitbart:

When Obama pushed through his stimulus package shortly after taking office, the money going to bail out GM and Chrysler was not so much intended to shore up those corporations as it was intended to shore up the unions at those corporations. In other words, although one of the ubiquitous reasons given was saving these two iconic American companies, the real goal was to pass tax-payer dollars to Democrat-dominated union members (to keep them voting for Democrat candidates for the foreseeable future). In a real sense, this is nothing more than a sophisticated money laundering scheme. And it’s one that should outrage every American taxpayer regardless of party affiliation.

Operation Fast and Furious proved that the Obama administration was willing to use ‘straw’ purchasers to push a political agenda which included the deaths of innocent people as collateral damage. One ATF supervisor said, ‘If you’re going to make an omelet, you’ve got to scramble some eggs’ (No one at ATF was fired and if that doesn’t communicate an ‘ends justify the means’ mentality, what does?). In the case of Pakistan’s ISI buying Kashmir policy influence, ‘straw donors’ were used. Obama himself appears to have benefited from that.
Of course, the cherry on top might just be that Hillary’s closest adviser – Huma Abedin – is the daughter of another Muslim Sisterhood leader – Saleha Abedin – who is a close colleague of Mahomoud.
Nothing to see here?
Hardly.