The leader of an organization widely identified as an anti-Muslim hate group visited the White House on Tuesday and described her visit as “very productive”.

Brigitte Gabriel, a Lebanese American conservative, has written two books warning about the dangers of “radical Islam”. Act for America, the organization she founded, describes itself as the “the NRA of national security” and claims 500,000 members and 1,000 chapters across the country focused on advancing policies “to protect America from terrorism”.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, however, classifies Act for America as “the largest grassroots anti-Muslim group in America”.

The former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who was forced to resign in connection with his communication with the Russian ambassador, has been on one of Act’s board of advisers, according to the group’s website.

The White House confirmed the visit, calling it a “pretty typical” meeting, and saying that Gabriel herself requested it.

Gabriel and a colleague were at the White House to “participate in a brief meeting with a member of our legislative staff. The purpose was to make general introductions, which is pretty typical with any new administration,” a White House official told the Guardian.

The official added: “They requested the meeting to share their ideas.”

Gabriel and Act for America did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday afternoon.

Gabriel has previously told reporters that she opposes only radical Islam, not all Muslims.

Gabriel promoted her visit to the White House by posting photos on her social media accounts, but she revealed few details of what she did and whom she met, which prompted outrage from the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“No White House official should be meeting with the leader of a hate group that is one of the main sources of growing anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation,” the council’s national executive director, Nihad Awad, said in a statement. “This meeting should be canceled immediately and an explanation should be offered as to why it was scheduled in the first place.”

No White House official should be meeting with the leader of a hate group Nihad Awad

Gabriel announced her “meeting at the White House” on Twitter on Monday and asked supporters what topics she should address.

The Southern Poverty Law Center classifies Act for America as an anti-Muslim hate group. It cites as one example a speech Gabriel gave to the Department of Defense’s joint forces staff college in 2007, in which she reportedly said that a practicing Muslim who prays five times a day “cannot be a loyal citizen of the United States”.

Gabriel has previously told reporters that she opposes only radical Islam, not all Muslims.

In her first book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America, she wrote disparagingly of Americans who still “refuse to accept that in the Muslim world, extreme is mainstream”. Gabriel, a Maronite Christian, grew up in southern Lebanon in the 1970s before fleeing the country during its civil war: first for Israel, then for the US.

In one photograph posted Tuesday afternoon, Gabriel can be seen posing outside the White House, giving a thumbs up to the camera. In other, she is showing a large booklet of information to an unidentified man in a room with ornately framed oil paintings hanging on the wall.

Act for America has used social media before to dramatize Gabriel’s connections to the White House. In late February, the group posted a photo of its founder with Trump, with the caption: “Brigitte Gabriel in Mar-A-Lago giving a national security briefing and look who she bumped into...Donald J. Trump!”

Heidi Beirich, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Project, said in a statement: “Brigitte Gabriel is an extreme Islamophobe and leader of a known hate group. Hate has no place in the White House and she should not have an audience with the Trump administration. There have been enough anti-Muslim people in this administration already – enough is enough.”