Posted on 04/07/2007 3:53:36 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAIRO, Egypt - A top U.S. Democratic congressman met a leading member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, an outlawed opposition group, during a recent visit to the country, the Islamic fundamentalist group and U.S. officials said Saturday.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (news, bio, voting record) met with the Muslim Brotherhood's parliament leader, Mohammed Saad el-Katatni, twice on Thursday — once at the parliament building and then at the home of the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, said Brotherhood spokesman Hamdi Hassan.
U.S. Embassy spokesman John Berry would only confirm that Hoyer, who represents Maryland, met with el-Katatni at U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone's home at a reception with other politicians and parliament members.
Though officially banned since 1954, the Brotherhood is tolerated by the government and has become Egypt's largest opposition group and President Hosni Mubarak's most powerful rival.
Its members, who run as independents, make up the largest opposition bloc in parliament, holding about one-fifth of its 454 seats.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has refused in the past to meet with the Muslim Brotherhood.
But Berry said U.S. government policy does not bar meetings with Brotherhood members of parliament and Hoyer's talks with el-Katatni were not a change in U.S. policy toward the group.
"It's our diplomatic practice around the world to meet with parliamentarians, be they members of political parties or independents," Berry said. "We haven't changed our policy with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood as an organization."
The State Department had no comment Saturday on Hoyer's meetings with the group.
Berry stressed that Hoyer met with el-Katatni in his capacity as an independent member of Egyptian parliament. He would not say what the two discussed.
Hassan said the two lawmakers discussed developments in the Middle East, the "Brotherhood's vision" and opposition movements in Egypt. He said the two met privately at the ambassador's home and with other members of Hoyer's bipartisan delegation and Egyptian lawmakers at the parliament building.
Hoyer's meeting came just a day after Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) drew sharp criticism from the Bush administration for meeting with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Damascus.
Pelosi and other Democrats argue the administration needs to engage Syria to resolve some of the most intractable problems in the Middle East, such as Iraq and the Israeli-Arab conflict. But the Bush administration rejects that approach, accusing Syria of exacerbating the troubles in neighboring Iraq and Lebanon.
Jon Alterman, a Mideast specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Bush administration officials may have avoided meeting Muslim Brotherhood members because that could strain relations with the secular Egyptian government, one of the closest U.S. allies in the Middle East.
"The difficulty when it gets to Egypt is that the Brotherhood is not a legal group within Egypt and the U.S. government is wary of violating laws in countries in which it operates," he told The Associated Press on Saturday.
"The larger constraint on our willingness to meet the Brotherhood is the Egyptian government's unease with our government's meeting with the Brotherhood."
Hoyer, who also met with Mubarak during his visit, left Egypt on Friday. A telephone message left with his spokeswoman Saturday was not immediately returned. Calls to el-Katatni also went unanswered Saturday.
The Muslim Brotherhood's parliament bloc Web site said the meetings were not part of an effort to engage the United States.
"The Brotherhood not only has reservations on dialogue with the Americans but rejects the unfair American policy in the region," the Web site said.
Washington has been pressing Mubarak for years to enact reforms as part of a Bush administration campaign to spread democracy in the Mideast. And Rice expressed concern in March that "all voices" were not being heard in deliberations over amending the constitution as part of those reforms.
"There's been a growing sense in Washington over 20 years that Islamic politics are here to stay, and the U.S. interest in promoting democracy around the world means we should be engaging with a growing number of actors," Alterman said.
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Associated Press writers Anna Johnson in Cairo and John Heilprin in Washington contributed to this report.
This is proof that they broke the law.
This is what they were discussing :
Text of the Logan Act
§ 953. Private correspondence with foreign governments.
Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States,
The reason for this is to keep the asshats from doing what they did,,,
IMHO they all violated the LAW !!
What Will Be Done ??
I bet Nothin’ !!!!! ...:0(
Traitors.
I know Dog. These guys are bad actors in every country. Wasn’t Zawaheri a member of the MB?
Yes...when I was listening to that interview with Lantos...I was trying to write the important things so I could post it...and he even empasized the word “detailed”..and that really struck me as something to let everyone know.
When all the MSM and dems were making excuses for her trip this last week...they kept saying it was a “fact-finding mission”..and that ALL Congress people have that right.
From what Lantos said, it doesn’t sound like they were finding out things...it sounds like they were TELLING them things...things that they shouldn’t have.
Yes..CM...on that WS Journal Report..they mentioned there IS a Logan Act...but it is NEVER used!! WHY have a law??
Yes he was an emir of Egyptian Islamic Jihad an offshoot of MB.
Yes..CM...on that WS Journal Report..they mentioned there IS a Logan Act...but it is NEVER used!! WHY have a law??
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A very good question,,,time to pull the trigger on that...
Do you think they didn’t have an alliance prior to 9/11? (donning tin foil here)
If the past is any guide, they probably discussed how Muslims could help overthrow the Republicans in 2008.
I really don't know. I guess I think that they rely on most people not knowing who and what these people are. Are they willing to create confusion and good at it...I would say yes, and so many of our citizens seem susceptible to it.
I have seen references to why would the US Amb. facilitate the meetings..and shouldn’t he bet held accountable.
From what I have noticed about Ambassadors, when interviewed on TV...they seem to become MORE close to the countries they are Ambassadors in than America after a while.
Americans can no longer rely on the no balls Senators or no balls Representatives to do what is right. They are all too afraid of the big bad media and loosing what little support they have. Little do they know it is what we are waiting for! Call their offices over and over and over, demand they uphold the Constitution as they were elected to do. Ask why you haven’t seen them on television voicing their anger at Pelosi’s actions. Ash why they haven't done anything, and don't take any bullsh$$ political answers. Yell, scream, holler, jump up and down until they listen! It is time to fight back.
It is time for all those Christians out there to quit turning the other cheek! “The meek will inherit the earth.” However, if Christians continue to sit back on their butts, what kind of earth will our children inherit? What will you tell your Grandchildren when they ask what you did to stop what’s happening? I live in a very rural community in very rural Kansas. No media, newspaper runs once a week, no television stations. However, I know a great many of you live in large metropolitan cities. Get to work!
I have written everyone I can think of. So call into every talk show, write editorials, and don't let up! Write President Bush and tell him it's time to use his bully pulpit to protect America and to tell Congress to get fuc#$$! He is the President and it’s about time to crawl out from under his desk and make as much noise as he can. Demand that he call for Speaker Pelosi’s resignation and prosecution. Hell, the RATS don’t hesitate for a minute to call for the resignation of everyone they can drag into the mud whether their guilty of anything at all. If we continue to sit back and do nothing, they will destroy America!
Sorry for the profanity, but I am fighting mad! GOD BLESS AMERICA (for as long as we can keep it)!
Great, so was the majority whip attempting to communicate with Al Qaeda?
I would be surprised if there were more than three employees of the State Department who believed that they represented the interests of United States of America.
Sure looks like they were
Considering Zawahiri is from the Muslim Brotherhood I would say Hoyer has a direct route to Bin Ladin and Zawahiri.
Great RANT!
I am going to be making a lot of calls on Monday.
OMG, these are going to make GREAT campaign commercials :o)
Why are we hearing about this on a Holiday Weekind, Several days late!! Could it be MSM is trying to bury this?
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