Subject: RE: Trump Listens To Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy Theorists
From: "Freundlich, Christina" <[email-masked]>
To: "Bauer, Nick" <[email-masked]>, "Roberts, Kelly" <[email-masked]>, "Dillon, Lauren" <[email-masked]>, "Graham, Caroline" <[email-masked]>, "Walker, Eric" <[email-masked]>, Mark Paustenbach <[email-masked]>
Cc: "Brinster, Jeremy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2016 11:52:43 -0700

Thank you

From: Bauer, Nick
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 2:44 PM
To: Roberts, Kelly; Dillon, Lauren; Graham, Caroline; Freundlich, Christina; Walker, Eric; Mark Paustenbach
Cc: Brinster, Jeremy
Subject: RE: Trump Listens To Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy Theorists

Adding comms folks.

As a response to Trump's accusation that Obama helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in Egypt, Kelly put together this doc on the roots of Trump's accusation.  The doc shows that Trump's insinuation that Obama is sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood has roots  in the crazy theories' of his advisors and research from disreputable s sources, and reminds folks that Trump has a history of suggesting that Obama himself is a Muslim.

From: Roberts, Kelly
Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2016 2:03 PM
To: Dillon, Lauren; Graham, Caroline; Bauer, Nick
Cc: Brinster, Jeremy
Subject: Trump Listens To Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy Theorists

Based on his claim the president helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power.

Trump Listens To Muslim Brotherhood Conspiracy Theorists

TRUMP CLAIMED THAT PRESIDENT OBAMA HELPED BRING THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD TO POWER

Trump Claimed President Obama "Helped Bring The Muslim Brotherhood To Power" In Egypt. TRUMP: "He [President Obama] supported the ouster of a friendly regime in Egypt that had a longstanding peace treaty with Israel, and then helped bring the Muslim Brotherhood to power in his place." [Trump Foreign Policy Speech, Washington DC, 4/27/16]

ONE OF TRUMP'S TOP FOREIGN POLICY ADVISORS HAS PREVIOUSLY ESPOUSED CONSPIRACY THEORIES ON THE PRESIDENT AND THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD

In 2012, Walid Phares Claimed Obama Administration Officials Were Partnering With The Muslim Brotherhood To Influence American Foreign Policy.  "One of them is terrorism analyst Walid Phares. A professor at the National Defense University who has worked at the conservative Hudson Institute, Phares has warned that Islamists inside the U.S. 'are here to spread Sharia.' In one 2012 appearance, Phares - who advised Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign on Middle East issues - claimed that 'there are advisers and experts for this administration... engaging with and partnering with the Muslim Brotherhood' in order to influence American foreign policy.'" [Politico, 3/21/16<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-foreign-policy-advisers-221058>]

Walid Phares: "There Are Advisers And Experts For This Administration... Engaging With And Partnering With The Muslim Brotherhood" To Influence American Policy. "One of them is terrorism analyst Walid Phares. A professor at the National Defense University who has worked at the conservative Hudson Institute, Phares has warned that Islamists inside the U.S. 'are here to spread Sharia.' In one 2012 appearance, Phares - who advised Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign on Middle East issues - claimed that 'there are advisers and experts for this administration... engaging with and partnering with the Muslim Brotherhood' in order to influence American foreign policy.'" [Politico, 3/21/16<http://www.politico.com/story/2016/03/donald-trump-foreign-policy-advisers-221058>]

Trump Listed Walid Phares As A Member Of His Foreign Policy Team. "Trump began the hour-long meeting by pulling out a list of some of his foreign policy advisers. 'Walid Phares, who you probably know. Ph.D., adviser to the House of Representatives. He's a counter-terrorism expert,' Trump said. 'Carter Page, Ph.D. George Papadopoulos. He's an oil and energy consultant. Excellent guy. The honorable Joe Schmitz, [was] inspector general at the Department of Defense. General Keith Kellogg. And I have quite a few more. But that's a group of some of the people that we are dealing with. We have many other people in different aspects of what we do. But that's pretty representative group.'" [Washington Post, 3/21/16<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/03/21/donald-trump-reveals-foreign-policy-team-in-meeting-with-the-washington-post/?tid=sm_tw>]

TRUMP GETS HIS RESEARCH FROM A GROUP THAT CLAIMS THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD IS TRYING TO INFILTRATE AND OVERTHROW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

HEADLINE: "The Conspiracy-Theory Group Behind Trump's Muslim Stats" [Associated Press, 12/9/15<http://nypost.com/2015/12/09/the-conspiracy-theorist-group-behind-trumps-muslim-stats/>]

Trump Based His Outrageous Claim That 25 Percent Of American Muslims Supported Violence Against America As Part Of Global Jihad  On A Study Down By The Center For Security Policy, Which Thinks The Muslim Brotherhood Is Trying To Infiltrate And Overthrow The U.S. Government. "Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has cited several statistics from a 'highly respected' group to justify his proposal to temporarily bar Muslims from entering the country. They include the assertion that 25 percent of American Muslims believe violence in the United States is justified as a part of a global jihad, and that 51 percent agree Muslims in America should have the choice of being governed by US or Islamic law. But those figures come from a problematic June poll commissioned by a think tank that has long theorized that Muslims are trying to infiltrate the United States. The Center for Security Policy was founded in 1988 by Frank Gaffney, who has warned that the Muslim Brotherhood - an Islamist political party now banned in its native Egypt - is infiltrating the federal government in an attempt to overthrow it and install Islamic law in the US." [Associated Press, 12/9/15<http://nypost.com/2015/12/09/the-conspiracy-theorist-group-behind-trumps-muslim-stats/>]

THE CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY WAS FOUNDED BY FRANK GAFFNEY, ONE OF THE NATION'S LEADING ISLAMOPHOBES AND A TED CRUZ ADVISOR

Bloomberg: One Of Ted Cruz's Advisors, Center For Security Policy Founder Frank Gaffney, Was "Accused By The Southern Poverty Law Center Of Being One Of The Nation's Leading Islamophobes." "On Thursday, Senator Ted Cruz is set to announce his campaign's national security advisory team, and it includes many foreign-policy insurgents and a few more establishment types. The list includes conservatives who disagree on one of the most pressing issues facing the next president: defining and confronting radical Islam. The first name on the advisory list that stands out is Frank Gaffney, a former Reagan administration Pentagon official who has emerged as a lightning rod in the Obama era, accused by the Southern Poverty Law Center of being one of the nation's leading Islamophobes. When Trump proposed a temporary ban on all Muslim immigration, he quoted from a 2015 survey of American Muslims commissioned by the think tank Gaffney founded, the Center for Security Policy. It concluded that a quarter of U.S. Muslims supported violent jihad against the U.S. This led to speculation in the Washington press that Gaffney was advising Trump." [Bloomberg, 3/17/16<http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-03-17/cruz-assembles-an-unlikely-team-of-foreign-policy-rivals>]

HEADLINE: "Ted Cruz's New Adviser Is Even More Anti-Muslim Than Donald Trump." [Huffington Post, 3/17/16<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-frank-gaffney-islamophobia_us_56eb11cbe4b03a640a69fc3b>]

HEADLINE: "America's First Muslim President?" [Frank Gaffney, Washington Times, 6/9/09<http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jun/09/americas-first-muslim-president/>]

TRUMP HAS REPEATEDLY SUGGESTED PRESIDENT OBAMA IS MUSLIM

HEADLINE: "Donald Trump's History Of Suggesting Obama Is A Muslim" [CNN, 9/18/15<http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/>]

Trump Suggested That President Obama's Birth Certificate Would Say He Was Muslim. "The effort helped fuel the so-called 'birther' conspiracy theory that held that Obama was born in Kenya -- and Trump also floated the idea that Obama's birth documents may label him a Muslim. 'He doesn't have a birth certificate. He may have one, but there's something on that, maybe religion, maybe it says he is a Muslim,' Trump told Fox News in 2011. 'I don't know. Maybe he doesn't want that.'" [CNN, 9/18/15<http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/18/politics/trump-obama-muslim-birther/>]