WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann has not backed off her claims that Islamic groups have worked to influence the United States government.
Appearing on a Christian radio show over the weekend, Bachmann accused the Obama administration and the FBI of agreeing to remove language negative to Islam from government material. She said it was part of an effort by the intergovernmental Organization for Islamic Cooperation and other Islamic groups to silence negative speech toward Islam, warning that it’s a threat to American free speech.
“That’s what I spent my whole year doing, was talking about this issue of what the OIC was trying to do with their 10-year plan and all of these efforts in the Obama administration,” she told the show, saying she reviewed now-classified documents on the matter after her presidential run last fall and winter. “The only conclusion you can make is that they are embracing the ten-year plan and supporting it.”
Bachmann said the end goal is instituting Sharia law in the United States. The issue is so pressing that Americans should read up on the groups’ proposals, she said, in the same way people could have deduced Adolph Hitler’s plans had they read his book Mein Kampf during World War II.
You can listen to Bachmann’s interview, for a program called “Understanding the Times,” here. Bachmann starts around 24 minutes in.
The backdrop for the interview was a September speech to the Value Voters Summit in which she accused the Obama administration of accepting OIC proposals to “do a complete purge of any federal materials from references to the ideology of Islam.” That, as well, was a variation of an argument Bachmann made this summer that Islamic groups had been influencing the U.S. government.
Bachmann’s summer remarks were highly controversial — Democrats, led by Rep. Keith Ellison, slammed her call for an investigation into a potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the U.S. government. High-ranking Republicans rebuffed her as well.
Bachmann won re-election to her U.S. House seat last month, beating a Democratic challenger by just 1.2 percent.
Devin Henry can be reached at dhenry@minnpost.com.