Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) told a conservative radio program this week that the Obama administration “bungled” the investigation of the Boston bombing due to internal guidance from the Muslim Brotherhood.

Appearing on World Net Daily’s radio show, Gohmert speculated that Attorney General Eric Holder read bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his Miranda rights to “shut him up” and undermine the investigation into the brothers’ possible ties to radical Islam. “It’s very clear to everybody but this administration that radical Islam is at war against us,” he said, before noting that Obama has displayed a “real pattern” of “incompetence” in responding to the threat from extremists during his tenure. He then suggested that members of the Muslim Brotherhood have infiltrated the administration and are leading the president astray:

Q: Some people are wondering whether or not the fact that it looks like radical Islam is once again a factor here is potentially a narrative that some folks don’t want publicly out there. Do you think that’s playing into this at all?

GOHMERT: I think it is… It’s very clear to everybody but this administration that radical Islam is at war agains us… Radical Islam is at war with us. Thank God for the moderates that don’t approve of what’s being done. But this administration has so many Muslim Brotherhood members that have influence that they just are making wrong decisions for America.

Listen:

Last year, Gohmert joined a small group of conservative lawmakers led by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to demand that the Inspectors General of four government agencies investigate “deep penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. government. The Obama administration condemned the lawmakers for using false and inaccurate information to smear “anyone that happens to be Muslim.”

On Friday, Gohmert took the the House floor to suggest that Obama’s “political correctness” prevented the FBI from asking deceased Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev about Islam during their 2011 interview.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggested on Friday that the FBI was unable to ask deceased Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev about Islam during its 2011 interview with him due to President Obama’s “political correctness,” thus allowing the bombing to take place.

Gohmert said on the House floor that the Obama administration has prevented intelligence officials from discussing Islam. “It was in that 9/11 commission report, before this administration took over and implemented political correctness,” he said, arguing the FBI’s training manuals were “systematically purged” in 2011 to conform to Obama’s worldview.

Obama’s whitewashing of Islam, Gohmert hinted, allowed the Tsarnaev brothers to slip through the fingers of the FBI and set off bombs in Boston:

GOHMERT: But what kind of interview must that have been of the guy who was going to blow off arms and legs and kill a child and who had dreams of killing so many more. What kind of interview must that have been when you can’t use the word jihad, you can’t talk about his Muslim faith? Did they even bring up Tamerlan’s Muslim faith in that interview? [...] Is it any wonder that the FBI came away from their interviews and said, ‘We don’t find any problems?’ Well, I guess not. [...] What kind of interviews must those have been when you can’t use the terms that let you get to the bottom of what may be a plot to kill people down the road? There’s no problem in the Justice Department, there is a problem with leadership that will not let them do their job. And it needs to change.

The facts don’t line up with Gohmert’s claims, however. In 2011 it was revealed that FBI’s counterterrorism training courses were full of misleading views about Islam, including that mainstream Muslims are “violent” and “radical.” In response to the revelation, the FBI purged its training documents of all that mischaracterized all Muslims as being especially prone to terrorism.

When it comes to questioning Tsarnaev, the FSB — Russia’s domestic intelligence service — reached out to the United States in 2011 regarding its fears that he — an ethnic Chechen — was a security threat. In response, the FBI launched a three-month investigation into Tsarnaev, including interviews with him, his family, and his communications and internet usage. Following that review, the FBI determined there wasn’t enough evidence to continue to monitor Tsarnaev’s activities. When the FBI reported that to Russia in Oct. 2011, requesting further information about why the FSB believed Tsarnaev was a threat, Russia reportedly never responded.

Gohmert has proved no stranger to promoting wild theories related to Islam during his time in Congress. At various times, the Texan has stated that wide gun-ownership is needed to protect against Sharia law, that Obama intervened in Libya to allow al Qaeda to spread, and that the president is seeking to take credit for starting a new Ottoman Empire. Interfaith groups have called upon Gohmert in the past to drop his Islamophobia, seemingly to no effect.

(Photo: Rep. Louie Gohmert, Credit: AP/Manuel Cenata)

An interfaith group is speaking out against Rep. Louie Gohmert’s (R-TX) claim on Thursday that Americans need the Second Amendment’s protection in order to shield the nation from Sharia Law.

Speaking on a radio show called The Voice of Freedom, Gohmert insisted that “We’ve got some people who think Sharia Law should be the law of the land, forget the Constitution. But the guns are there… to make sure all of the rest of the Amendments are followed.” In response, Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, President of the Interfaith Alliance, has sent a letter to Gohmert, protesting his “continued demonization of Islam”:

I feel compelled to again remind you that the continued demonization of Islam and disenfranchisement of the American Muslim community is not only uncalled for, it is a dangerous affront to the religious freedom upon which this nation was founded and it must end. American Muslims, the overwhelming majority of whom live peaceful, law-abiding lives — just like Americans from other religious groups — should not have to live in a country where their elected officials imply that they need to be kept at bay with firearms.

Furthermore, at a time when gun violence has wracked our nation with one unimaginable tragedy after another, I would hope that elected officials such as you would stay focused on real measures to prevent future needless deaths. I would hope that you would focus your attention on measures to truly balance the Second Amendment rights you so strongly defend, rather than derailing what should be a substantive policy discussion with misguided bigotry.

Gohmert has been in trouble before with the Interfaith Alliance, having also received a letter from them during his partnership with Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to persecute Muslim-American government officials. Gorhmert has also during his time in Congress called for hearings on the dangers of Sharia and claimed that President Obama went to war in Libya to help Al Qaeda spread across the Middle East.

Rev. Gaddy also included with his letter a copy of a text titled “What is the Truth About American Muslims: Questions and Answers,” produced by Interfaith Alliance and the Religious Freedom Education Project of the First Amendment Center. Congressman Gohmert’s office did not immediately respond to an e-mailed question regarding whether or not he had read over, or plans to read, the resource.

The full text of the letter can be read after the break.

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