Ellison, Bachmann Trade Shots Over Muslim Brotherhood

Citing a man who once claimed the National Missile Defense Agency's logo was a sign of "official U.S. submission to Islam" because it included a crescent, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann last week alleged the Obama administration had been infiltrated by agents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood is an 84-year old political movement active in many countries in the Arab world.

The main source of this infiltration, she claimed, was a top aide for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose family she said had ties to the Brotherhood. She asked five federal agencies to investigate her allegations. Salon.com reported on Friday that the aide has been targeted by anti-Muslim activists before.

On Thursday, Rep. Keith Ellison sent Bachmann an official letter asking for "a full accounting" of her sources for the claims, according to Think Progress.

“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.”

On Friday, Bachmann fired back. According to the St. Cloud Times, she backed away from her initial, specific allegations of Brotherhood influence within the State Department. Her Friday letter claimed she only wanted to know how the aide received security clearances. In her reply to Ellison, she said her charges were based on court documents from 2007 and 2008 investigations into Palestinian terrorist financing networks in the U.S. 

Bachmann's initial letters prominently cited Frank Gaffney, a conservative columnist and radio host. Gaffney is infamous for once accusing anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of having ties to radical Islamist groups because he married a Muslim woman. 

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