In June 2012, Hillary Clinton’s State Department issued a visa to enter the United States to Hani Noor Eldin — an avowed member of the Egyptian terror group Gamaa Islamiya.
Gamaa Islamiya had been designated by the U.S. as a terror organization since October 1997 during the Clinton administration.
According to U.S. law, Eldin’s request for a visa must be denied.
But not only was Eldin allowed into the U.S., he was escorted into Hillary’s State Department where he met with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns and Under Secretary Robert Hormats. Eldin was then received at the White House by Denis McDonough, who was Obama’s deputy national security advisor at the time, and is currently the White House chief of staff.
According to published reports, Eldin used these meetings as an opportunity to press Obama administration officials to release from federal prison the leader of his terror group, the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman. Rahman is serving a life sentence for his leadership role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the planned follow-up “Day of Terror” plot targeting New York landmarks.
(That case was prosecuted by my friend and PJ Media colleague, former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy.)
Those meetings resulted in serious Obama administration discussions about transferring the blind sheikh back to Egypt, then under control of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. Morsi had vowed to pressure the U.S. for the blind sheikh’s release while Eldin was in Washington, D.C.
The blind sheikh’s transfer was only stopped when members of Congress began asking about the deal. The possibility of his transfer was publicly denounced by former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who presided over the blind sheikh’s trial as a federal district court judge.
When Congress asked about Eldin’s visit to the U.S., then-Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano vowed that more foreign terrorists would be allowed in for such situations.
Questions were initially raised about how Eldin was allowed in the country and the details of his visit to Washington, D.C. when the story broke from reporter Eli Lake, who interviewed the terror group member. Eldin had no problem admitting he was a member of the banned Gamaa Islamiya:
It was supposed to be a routine meeting for Egyptian legislators in Washington, an opportunity for senior Obama administration officials to meet with new members of Egypt’s parliament and exchange ideas on the future of relations between the two countries.
Instead, the visit this week looks like it’s turning into a political fiasco. Included in the delegation of Egyptian lawmakers was Hani Nour Eldin, who, in addition to being a newly elected member of parliament, is a member of the Gamaa Islamiya, or the Egyptian Islamic Group — a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The group was banned under former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, and is now a recognized Islamist political party. Its spiritual leader, Omar Abdel Rahman — also known as the “blind sheik” — was convicted in 1995 of plotting attacks on New York City landmarks and transportation centers, and is serving a life sentence in a North Carolina federal prison.
Eldin, according to his Facebook page, was born in 1968 and resides in Suez, near the canal that unites the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea. He was arrested in 1993 on terrorism charges after members of Gamaa Islamiya got into a shoot out with Egyptian security officials at a mosque. He has proclaimed his innocence in the shooting and says he was arrested because of his political activism against Mubarak.
In an interview, Eldin confirmed he is a member of Gamaa Islamiya. By U.S. law, that means he would be denied a visa to enter the country. Nonetheless, he says, he got a visa from the State Department. A State Department spokesman said, “We have no information suggesting that he or anyone else in the delegation is a member of the Egyptian Islamic Group.”
The State Department blamed the visit on the U.S. government-funded Wilson Center, which then turned around and blamed the State Department:
While in Washington, Eldin also visited the Wilson Center, a think tank that specializes in foreign policy issues. A State Department spokesman said the delegation was “invited to Washington by the Wilson Center. I refer you to the Wilson Center for any additional information on their visit.”
A spokesman for the Wilson Center, however, said the delegation was selected by the State Department. “We can’t speak to the background of Eldin,” said Drew Sample the media relations coordinator for the Wilson Center. “The Wilson Center was one of the places on the delegation’s Washington visit. We did not invite these people, the State Department arranged the visit.”
