Biden Appoints Problematic Islamist With Muslim Brotherhood Ties To Religious Freedom Commission

Under the Biden administration, Islamist affiliations are résumé builders and genocide denial is no big thing.

Serving as an imam of a mosque that was credibly accused of serving as a conduit for terror financing and as the leader of a national organization with roots in the Muslim Brotherhood should disqualify someone from serving on a commission charged with monitoring abuses of religious freedom. And downplaying the horrors of a well-documented genocide fueled by religious animosity should also be a deal breaker. But under the Biden administration, these types of Islamist affiliations are résumé builders and genocide denial is no big thing.

This was demonstrated last month when the White House appointed Mohamed Hag Magid, a prominent imam from Virginia, to serve on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) last month. Established by Congress in 1998, USCIRF is charged with monitoring violations of the right to religious freedom throughout the world and makes recommendations on how to respond to these violations to the president, the U.S. State Department, and to Congress. According to its website, the nine-member commission is “appointed by either the President or Congressional leaders of each political party, supported by a non-partisan professional staff.”

In its announcement of Magid’s appointment, the White House highlighted his status as Executive Imam of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS) Center in Sterling, Virginia. In the early 2000s, the ADAMS center was named in a federal investigation as part of the SAAR network, an alleged terror finance organization funded by Saudi donors.

To further buttress Magid’s appointment, the White House invoked his tenure as president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) which was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1981. During his time as president, Magid gave an award to Dawud Walid, the executive director of CAIR-Michigan. Prior to receiving the ISNA reward, Walid declared, “Who are those who incurred the wrath of Allah? They are the Jews.” ISNA, by the way, was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Magid’s episode of genocide denial took place at a 2004 conference in Georgetown where he stated that reports about the mass-killings of Christians by the Islamist regime in Khartoum were “some kind of exaggeration,” and that “things escalated and people called it genocide.”

One of the groups that called what happened in Sudan “genocide” was USCIRF, the commission he now helps oversee. In 2001, USCIRF declared that religion was a major factor in Sudan’s civil war and that “the Sudanese government is committing genocidal atrocities against the civilian population in...

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