Weiner's accepting a donation from an Al-Jazeera lobbyist raises questions no less troubling than his recent sexting scandal.
Anthony Weiner, until now a front-runner in the mayoral race of New York City, has admitted to more sexual indiscretions and the media is all over the story. Sex is always a homerun for headline writers, causing Weiner’s other controversy to fade into the background: A lobbyist for Al-Jazeera has donated to his campaign, and that's fine with Weiner.
The story that Weiner received a $4,950 (the maximum legal donation) from Al-Jazeera lobbyist John Merrigan was just starting to gain traction in the media when the latest scandal broke. It’s certainly worth asking why an Al-Jazeera lobbyist is so attracted to his campaign, given Al-Jazeera’s well-earned reputation as a pro-Islamist, anti-American propaganda outlet.
Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar, the main state sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood. When Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef al-Qaradawi isn’t on the air for his weekly show, Al-Jazeera shows content likebirthday parties for terrorists. Al-Jazeera’s bias is so blatant that 22 employees resigned in protest after the network instructed them to slant their coverage of the recent events in Egypt in favor of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
Al-Jazeera knows courting politicians is one way to help overcome public opinion and, apparently, one of its lobbyists sees Weiner as an asset. That’s a lot more important than the perverted things Weiner said under the name “Carlos Danger.”
“They [Al-Jazeera] have spread hate and lies against Jews, not only here in New York, but across the world. The right thing to do is to give this money back. Anthony should do exactly that,” said City Councilman Lew Fidler, who is also running for the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor.
Weiner responded to the criticism of his Al-Jazeera-linked donation with mockery and said he never met the donor.
“I'm not a supporter of Al-Jazeera. I’m not taking money from Al-Jazeera. This makes me smile, but this is what happens, I guess, you start doing well … old politics kick in … People want to sell you up a bit to slow your momentum,” he said.
The connection between Weiner and an Al-Jazeera lobbyist should bring renewed attention to Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin.
Abedin was portrayed as the victim of a despicable anti-Muslim witch-hunt when Rep. Michele Bachmann and four other members of Congress brought attention to her family’s Muslim Brotherhood ties. As Deputy Chief of Staff to then-Secretary of State Clinton, Abedin had a top secret security clearance. The members of Congress wanted to know if these familial ties were taken into account in the background check and whether she was granted a waiver if she was denied.
The media and Democratic and Republican politicians turned Bachmann and her colleagues into villains. Unfortunately for them, the smoking gun arrived after the media’s attention span ran out. It turned out that Abedin was an assistant-editor of an Islamist journalfrom 1996, when she first met Clinton as a White House intern, until 2008.
The journal was published by the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, an Islamist institution founded by her late father. In 2008, Abedin, her brother and her mother were all editors of the journal together. It should be noted that Abedin's mother is a member of the Muslim Sisterhood leadership alongside the wife of former Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.
To sum it up, Abedin was working with her Islamist relatives at an Islamist journal during the entire course of her relationship with Clinton up to 2008. The following year, Clinton gave Abedin a senior position in the State Department, where she was given special treatment and allowed to continue working as a consultant.
In 2011, Abedin’s husband, then-Rep. Weiner, resigned after he tweeted sexually suggestive photographs of himself to a Seattle college student, among others. Abedin stood by his side. Since his decision to join the mayoral race in NYC, The New York Times described her as "a main architect" of his campaign.
Weiner's first endorsement was from Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), a friend of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood legacy groups. And now we know that a lobbyist for Al-Jazeera donated to his campaign.
The media should be asking Weiner about more than his sexual perversions and his disloyalty to his wife.
Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s National Security Analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.
