Author and former terrorism prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy. (Photo: National Review Institute)

In commenting on why the Obama administration initially had decided to release redacted portions of the 911 telephone calls made by the radical Islamic terrorist who killed 49 people at an Orlando night club, columnist, author, and former terrorism prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy said it was because the government “is becoming Sharia-adherent.”

Sharia is the Islamic law that many Muslims (and governments) throughout the world follow, and it is based on the teachings in the Quran.

On Monday’s Bretibart News Daily (SiriusXM), host Stephen K. Bannon asked McCarthy, “The attorney general went on NBC yesterday and she said she’s redacting the audio of the assailant in Orlando to take out his call to jihad, his pledge to the Islamic State. Did you buy her reason? Or do you think it shows our government is starting to become Sharia-adherent or Sharia-compliant?

McCarthy, who prosecuted the radical Islamic terrorists responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, said, “It’s clearly that the government is becoming Sharia-adherent. And the left is using the same tactic with respect to law enforcement against radical Islamic extremism as it uses in the area of what they call ‘climate change.’”

“That is, they have an official version of events, which may be part of a counter-universe, but it’s their story and they’re sticking to it,” he said. “And what they’re trying to do is purge any alternative explanation.”

McCarthy continued, “So, the administration has the position that violent extremism, which is what they call it, is disconnected from any credible interpretation of Islam; that Islam is singularly a religion of peace and there is to be no other interpretation of it; and, therefore, anything that shows the direct nexus between Islamic doctrine and jihadist terror is to be suppressed.”

McCarthy is the author of seven books, including How Obama Embraces Islam’s Sharia Agenda, The Grand Jihad: How Islam and the Left Sabotage America, and Islam and Free Speech. He is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a columnist for National Review Online, and a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.