Is leading contender for Democratic National Committee chairman a 9/11 “truther”?

As Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison’s name is being floating to take over the DNC after the Democrats’ collective drubbing on Election Day, Ellison’s radical and fringe views are coming to light.

When he addressed the Atheists for Human Rights group in 2007, he asserted that the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were effectively allowed to happen so George W. Bush could seize more power.

“I mean, 9/11 explains why we are in this (Iraq) war,” he said. “We could never be in this war but for 9/11.

“We could never be tolerating torture but for 9/11 because when they argued for torture, they said, ‘Well, if you knew somebody could stop a bomb if you tortured them, would you go for it then?’ Because remember 9/11, right?

“We’d never have this discrimination against religious minorities but for 9/11,” he continued. “You had it but not to the degree we have it now.

“9/11 is this juggernaut event in American history and it allows — it’s almost like, you know, the Reichstag fire, it kind of reminds me of that,” Ellison said, referring to the 1933 fire at the German parliament Adolf Hitler used to seize more control.

“After the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the communists for it, and it put the leader of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted,” Ellison said, referring to Hitler.