The leading candidate to become the chairman of the Democratic Party shared his Capitol Hill press conference with a leading advocate for Islamic radicals, Nihad Awad, who is the director of the jihad-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR.

Candidate Rep. Keith Ellison’s decision to share the microphone with CAIR director on Wednesday afternoon highlights the willingness of party activists to deepen their alliance with the small number of radical Muslim voters living in the United States, despite the huge ideological conflicts between the party’s liberal base and the Muslim groups’ toxic Islamic ideology and aggressive Arab politics.

Ellison is a leading candidate to become chairman of the Democratic National Committee, who will be chosen by a party vote in late February. He has public support from the Democrats’ leader in the Senate. Sen. Chuck Schumer, but faces growing opposition from former labor secretary Tom Perez.

The press conference was called to protest President Donald Trump’s popular policy to curb immigration of people with “hostile attitudes.”

Both Ellison and Awad insisted the hostile attitudes policy is anti-Islam, even though it only seeks to exclude people who:

do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law … those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

Ellison is already facing criticism for his closeness to the Islamic groups. For example, the Anti-Defamation League flipped from support to opposition. His public appearance with Awad could add to his political problems.

In a Tweeted photograph from Ellison’s office, Awad is the partly bald man with a red scarf standing to left of the microphones. Ellison is just to the right of the microphones, wearing a red tie and holding a sheet of paper.

Khizr Khan, Gold Star father, warns of anti-Trump boycott after travel ban | US news | The Guardian https://t.co/cqYJRZltTH — Keith Ellison (@keithellison) February 1, 2017

The same scene is shown a Tweet from Ellison’s ally, Rep. Luis Gutierrez, who a far-left advocate for much greater immigration, and also an advocate for the early release of a jailed Puerto Rican terrorist leader.

Breitbart has frequently noted that the CAIR group is so closely entwined with Islamists and with jihadis that court documents and news reports show that at least five of its people — either board members, employees or former employees — have been jailed or repatriated for various financial and terror-related offenses.

Breitbart has also published evidence highlighted by critics showing that CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas-based criminal effort to deliver $12 million to the Jew-hating HAMAS jihad group, that CAIR was founded with $490,000 from HAMAS, and that the FBI bans top-level meetings with CAIR officials. “ In 2009, a federal judge concluded that “the government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR… with Hamas.”

CAIR has been declared a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates and was named by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-funding operation.

Breitbart reporters have been pushed out of CAIR press conferences several times.