The five House Republicans who alleged the Obama administration had been infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood have refused to back down, despite criticism from members of their own party.

Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Tom Rooney (R-FL) and Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) told The Hill on Sunday that the media was unfairly focusing on Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. The three Republicans, along with Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Louie Gohmert (R-TX), sent letters to five inspectors general last month calling on them to investigate activities that appeared to be the result of influence by the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group.

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“I regret that Mrs. Abedin has become the media focus of this story, because the intention of the letters was to bring greater attention to a legitimate national security risk,” Rooney told The Hill.

The five Republicans said Abedin should be investigated because she “has three family members — her late father, her mother, and her brother — connected to Muslim Brotherhood operatives and/or organizations.” They accused the State Department of engaging in activities that “have been enormously favorable to the Muslim Brotherhood and its interests.”

Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner, Arizona Sen. John McCain, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins have all condemned the allegations targeting Abedin.

“The focus in the media has been on one sentence in one of those letters, and … they have the right to do that,” Franks said. “But it certainly doesn’t serve the American people when they overlook the central focus of the letters to try to take out of context one element of it that seems to be the only thing the left can aim at.”

The five Republicans also called for investigations targeting other Muslim members of the Obama administration. They accused the Pentagon of “submission” to Islam in Afghanistan for apologizing for the destruction of Qu’rans and avoiding the display of non-Muslim religious symbols. The five Republicans chastised the Defense Department’s Counter-Insurgency (COIN) strategy for “restrictive rules of engagement that, among other things, subordinate force protection to minimizing civilian causalities.”

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Their allegations rely heavily on “The Muslim Brotherhood in America: The Enemy Within,” a ten-part video course produced by the Center for Security Policy. The organization was founded by anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney, who has also accused the Conservative Political Action Conference of being infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood through anti-tax activist Grover Norquist.



[Image via Gage Skidmore]