Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) baseless allegations that the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated the U.S. government — particularly via a top aid to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton — have been met with near-universal condemnation inside the United States. But no one has thought to ask the Muslim Brotherhood whether she’s telling the truth – until now, when GlobalPost reporter Erin Cunningham managed to solicit a public response. While some Egyptians have unfortunately been persuaded by Bachmann’s nonsense, the Muslim Brothers themselves are not among them. They issued a somewhat amusing blanket denial:

“I haven’t heard these rumors, but they strike me as ridiculous,” said Ahmed Al Nahhas, a long-time Brotherhood activist and leader in Egypt’s second-largest city, Alexandria. “Surely the United States government selects its employees very carefully.” …

[I]n Egypt, the birthplace of the Brotherhood, the organization’s leaders were either perplexed by the accusations or simply hadn’t heard them. Nor had they heard of Huma Abedin.

“The Muslim Brotherhood can’t even penetrate the Egyptian government,” said a Brotherhood leader in Egypt’s Daqheleya province, Ibrahim Ali Iraqi, in response to the accusations his group had infiltrated top US agencies.

Indeed, having assumed the presidency following a year of economic tumult and political upheaval, the Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi is grappling with severe domestic problems — not least of which is his battle with the ruling military for executive power.

“We are in a period of darkness because the country is still governed by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces — and they have a long history of support from the United States,” Iraqi said. “So it’s ridiculous that these accusations are leveled at us.”

It’s not just Muslim Brotherhood officials that are skeptical of Bachmann’s crusade, which has its roots in Islamophobic leader Frank Gaffney’s wild conspiracy theories. Top Republicans including John Boehner, Marco Rubio, Scott Brown, John McCain, Jim Sensenbrenner, and Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee (on which Bachmann sits) Mike Rogers have all disavowed the Minnesota Congresswoman’s tilting at Muslim windmills. Further, Democrat Keith Ellison, one of two Muslims in Congress, has taken point on dismantling Bachmann’s Islamophobic inquisition. Bachmann’s allies, by contrast, include Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

SLINGER, Wisconsin — One of the most conservative congressmen in the country stepped up to defend Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, and the rights of all Muslim-Americans yesterday against Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) spurious accusations that she is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, calling them “the wrong thing to do.”

During a town hall held by Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) on Sunday, a constituent lauded Bachmann’s anti-Muslim witchhunt about a supposed Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government and called on her congressman to support her efforts. Sensenbrenner instead used the opportunity not only to defend Abedin, but to advocate for the larger notion of religious pluralism in America and a separation between church and state.

The longtime Republican congressman went on to praise the Constitution’s ban on religious tests to hold office, saying Thomas Jefferson’s vision “was right.” When the constituent responded with bigoted accusations about Islam, Sensenbrenner countered: “Religion is a personal issue to every one of the people who lives in the United States…And that has been one of the most cherished freedoms that this country has had since it’s beginning”:

SENSENBRENNER: Let me say that I do know Huma Abedin and I think that the comments that were made about her in that letter, whether or not they were taken out of context, were the wrong thing to do… I think the Constitution in saying that there shall never be a religious test for any office of trust and profit under the United States meant that people should not be judged on the basis of their religious beliefs or lack of religious beliefs. That was Thomas Jefferson that put that in the Constitution — I think he was right.

CONSTITUENT: I think that there’s a political ideology that’s a concern in Islam that is concerning and that should be looked at and we should know that this person is not a threat…

SENSENBRENNER: Heidi, Heidi, Heidi, the First Amendment prohibits the government from making a distinction between what is “good religion” and what is “bad religion.” That’s none of the government’s business. Religion is a personal issue to every one of the people who lives in the United States, whether you practice a faith, how you practice a faith, whether you don’t practice a faith, whether you say you’re a member of a faith but don’t practice it, it’s none of the government’s business. And this is the whole issue of religious freedom. And that has been one of the most cherished freedoms that this country has had since it’s beginning.

Watch highlights of the exchange:

That Sensenbrenner, a dyed-in-the-cloth conservative, would stand up to Islamophobic attacks from constituents and colleagues, is both laudable and heartening. Too often in the past, these voices of reason about Islam and religious freedom are only voiced on the left.

Still, Sensenbrenner isn’t the only Republican put off by Bachmann’s bogus charges. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was the first to stand up to Bachmann, calling her allegations “nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen.” In addition, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-MI) dropped his support for Bachmann’s witchhunt over the weekend.

Before facing heat this week for her paranoid quest to root out Muslim Brotherhood influence on the U.S. government, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) got support from the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers. But today, Rogers distanced himself from Bachmann’s allegations about Muslim-Americans.

In an interview with the USA Today, Rogers responded to a wave of criticism about Bachmann’s allegations about Huma Abedin, a top aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Rogers said:

That kind of assertion certainly doesn’t comport with the Intelligence Committee, and I can say that on the record. I have no information in my committee that would indicate that Huma is anything other than an American patriot.

This was not an activity that was sanctioned as any intelligence committee matter.

Rogers was singing a different tune earlier this month when he appeared on a radio show hosted by Islamophobe Frank Gaffney, a sometime Bachmann advisor and source of her attacks. Gaffney asked him about the Brotherhood’s “influence operation” within the government, particularly about the cleansing of Islamophobic F.B.I. training materials. Rogers said:

Well we are revisiting some of those decisions and a member of my committee Michele Bachmann is kind of taking the lead on this particular issue and going through and trying to figure out what they took out of the training materials and what they left in and why did it get changed? And why the agressive language change and how we teach about the Islam religion and radicalism in Islam.

All of that stuff is very, very important to go through and determine if they have been politicized or not.

Bachmann and Gaffney, for their parts, have stuck to their charges. Bachmann took more bipartisan heat this weekend for doubling down and accusing Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) — who has led the charge to demand evidence of Bachmann’s allegations — of being “associated with… the Muslim Brotherhood.”

On the floor of the Senate Wednesday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) repudiated Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) McCarthyesque witch-hunt to root out the alleged Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government. The flap started when Bachmann all but directly accused Secretary Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin of working on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood in a letter with four colleagues to the State Department’s Inspector General demanding an investigation.

While some Democrats have taken Bachmann to task for the charges, some Republicans, like House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers (MI), lauded her witch-hunt.

Enter McCain, who put his foot down today and chided his fellow Republicans for the accusations against Abedin. McCain brought up his personal relationship with Abedin, adding that she “represents what is best about America.” He noted Bachmann’s letter and its sourcing to a report from notorious Islamophobe Frank Gaffney‘s Center for Security Policy (CSP). He then said:

To say that the accusations made in both documents are not substantiated by the evidence they offer is to be overly polite and diplomatic about it. It is far better, and more accurate, to talk straight: These allegations about Huma Abedin, and the report from which they are drawn, are nothing less than an unwarranted and unfounded attack on an honorable citizen, a dedicated American, and a loyal public servant.

Watch the video:

Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) lead the charge against Bachmann, demanding “credible, substantial evidence” to back up her accusations. Bachmann then penned a long letter responding to Ellison, which he rightly dismissed as “16 pages worth of repeated false allegations. Just regurgitated nonsense.”

But Bachmann’s response to Ellison did adjust her sources. While many of the 59 footnotes are still dubious — such as those linking to the Islamophobe Steve Emerson’s group, the Investigative Project — she dropped the sole source cited in her initial letter to the State Department: Gaffney‘s CSP. In his request for information, Ellison had noted that Gaffney — a sometime Bachmann adviser and booster — had been “widely discredited.” McCain, who said he had worked with CSP and considers Gaffney a “friend” nonetheless called the accusations in the report “scurrilous.”

When Rep. Keith Ellison (R-MN) asked his colleague Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to produce “credible, substantial evidence” of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “deep penetration” into the U.S. government, she responded with a 16-page letter. In her new letter — a follow-up on letters she wrote with colleagues to the Inspectors General of four government agencies demanding they look into her chargers — Bachmann denied she had suggested Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s top aide Huma Abedin is linked to the Brotherhood and gave 59 footnoted sources for her claim.

On Anderson Cooper’s CNN show last night, Ellison responded to Bachmann’s latest salvo, saying her accusations were “simply scare-mongering” and compared her quest to root out Muslim Brotherhood infiltrators to Sen. Joe McCarthy’s infamous witch-hunt for Communist agents. Ellison went on::

COOPER: You asked for a full accounting of the evidence these members of Congress were using to make their claims. You got a 16- page letter back. Does their evidence hold up?

ELLISON: No, it’s 16 pages worth of nothing. It’s 16 pages worth of repeated false allegations. Just regurgitated nonsense. And, you know, it doesn’t — 16 pages doesn’t take nothing and turn it into something. It’s still nothing…

COOPER: Have you seen any evidence of “deep penetration” — that was the words that Congressman Bachmann used — “deep penetration” by the Muslim Brotherhood into the security apparatus of the United States?

ELLISON: No, it’s not true. It doesn’t exist. It’s a phantom.

Watch the whole interview here:

Cooper also related a statement from Abedin’s office responding to Bachmann’s allegations:

They are nothing but vicious and disgusting lies that have no place in reasonable political discourse. And anyone who traffics in them should be ashamed of themselves.

Ellison was right: Bachmann’s response simply rehashed the same charges against Abedin and others. Salon, which initially reported the letter, spelled out the absurdity of the allegations.

Bachmann denied the clearly implied charge that Abedin worked on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood. But in her first letter to the State Department, she named Abedin’s torturous and distant family connections to the group and said, “Her position affords her routine access to the Secretary and to policy-making.” She added, in the next sentence, that the Obama adminisrtation has “taken actions recently that have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

Responding to Ellison, Bachmann denied she was accusing Abedin directly and said her concern was simply about the security clearance process. She wrote that family members are already examined as “potentially disqualifying conditions for obtaining security clearance, which undoubtably Ms. Abedin had to obtain to function in her position.” In other words, the process she’s concerned about is already in place, but not to her liking, leaving one with little else to assume but that she is indeed making sordid implications about Abedin. Ellison called this “the worst of guilt by association.”

When Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) recently escalated her paranoid quest to root out the Muslim Brotherhood from the U.S. government, she named names. There’s a problem, however, when conspiracy theorists get into specifics, people will start demanding facts to back up their wild-eyed assertions.

That’s exactly what her colleague form the Minnesota Congressional delegation Rep. Keith Ellison (D) did when he responded to her letter to the State Department insinuating that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin (the wife of former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner) was at the heart of the Brotherhood’s infiltration of the State Department. “If she has sources for this type of information,” Ellison said in a statement, “she owes it to the country to reveal them to the proper authorities, but definitely not this way.”

Now, Ellison has taken his request for specifics directly to Bachmann and the co-signers of her letters to State and other government departments — Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Thomas Rooney (R-FL), and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) also signed. Ellison also calls out the source of their information, arch-Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. Ellison wrote:

I request that you provide my office a full accounting of the sources you used to make the serious allegations against the individuals and organizations in your letters. If there is not credible, substantial evidence for your allegations, I sincerely hope that you will publically clear their names.

(Read the whole letter here.)

After listing a host of ludicrous allegations made by Gaffney, Ellison wrote, “Mr. Gaffney’s views have been widely discredited, including by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and conservative organizations.” Gaffney was repudiated by the American Conservative Union, and barred from the powerhouse’s annual conservative CPAC confab.

Gaffney’s clearly pleased with Bachmann’s witch-hunt, soliciting support from other Members of Congress, like Republican House Intelligence Committee Chair Mike Rogers (MI), on his radio show. That he would serve as a source of information for what Ellison calls “serious allegations” is indeed troubling.

It seems now that Bachmann and her coterie of Republican Congressional conspiracy theorists will either have to put up, or shut up.