Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), one of two Muslim members of Congress, is under attack from an anti-Muslim group because he sits on the Congressional Task Force on Anti-Semitism. The paradoxically named Americans Against Hate held a rally in Florida this week to call for Ellison’s immediate removal, and issued a statement asking Rep. Ron Klein (D-FL), co-chair of CTFAS, to take Ellison off the task force:
Representative Klein has both the authority and the responsibility to remove Keith Ellison from the Congressional Task Force on Anti-Semitism, a group that Ellison has no business being on. We demand that he does so immediately. Every day that Ellison sits on that task force is an offense to those who fell victim to anti-Semitism and/or radical Islam.
AAH claims that Ellison has “associations” with groups that are supposedly connected to terror, but cites only speeches Ellison has given to Muslim-advocacy groups like the Council on American Islamic Relations and the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, which sponsored a recent trip Ellison took to Gaza. (When he came back from that trip, Ellison met with a local Jewish group and told them about his conversations with Gazans “who didn’t seem to appreciate how devastating the rocket attacks have been on Israel.”)
AAH’s founder, Joe Kaufman, is no stranger to mainstream conservatism. He spoke at a major Tea Party rally in Ft. Lauderdale this July, and has appeared several times on Fox News, including on Hannity. In his most recent appearance, on Fox & Friends, Kaufman decried a Muslim Family Day at Six Flags Great Adventure. Watch it:
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Rep. Klein has denied AAH’s request to remove Ellison in the past, but apparently the group thinks it will be able to change his mind. Interestingly, AAH already approached Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) — CTFAS’s other co-chair — and Kaufman claimed that Pence told him that he simply “would defer his position on Ellison to Klein.”