Secure Freedom Salutes Glenn Beck, N.R.A. for Investigation Of Grover Norquist

668px-Grover_Norquist_by_Gage_Skidmore

Grover Norquist. Source: Gage Skidmore.

Secure Freedom (also known as the Center for Security Policy) today applauded radio and television talk show host Glenn Beck for his principled declaration that he would end his close association with the National Rifle Association (NRA) if Grover Norquist were to be reelected to the NRA’s Board of Directors in balloting now underway.  Mr. Beck initially made this pledge on his syndicated radio program in the course of an interview with Secure Freedom President Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. on Wednesday, calling Norquist “a very bad man” and enabler of Muslim Brotherhood operatives.

Evidence of Mr. Norquist’s longstanding ties to Islamic supremacists was compiled in a detailed dossier transmitted in February 2014 to the then-leadership of another prominent national organization, the American Conservative Union, by ten influential national security professionals, led by Bush ’43 Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey and Clinton Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey.

A fourth edition of this monograph, entitled Agent of Influence: Grover Norquist and the Assault on the Right – Targeting the NRA, has just been released by Secure Freedom.  It includes illuminating correspondence written on the one hand by Mr. Norquist and one of his defenders, Washington attorney Cleta Mitchell, and on the other by General Mukasey and Mr. Gaffney.

Glenn Beck announced during his radio program on Friday that he had spoken for over an hour with Wayne LaPierre, the Executive Vice President of the NRA. In response to what Mr. Beck described as “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds” of phone calls stimulated by his earlier announcement, Mr. LaPierre promised that the National Rifle Association would be launching a “transparent” ethics investigation of Mr. Norquist.

In the interest of assisting in that investigation, Mr. Gaffney today sent every member of the NRA’s Board of Directors copies of the new edition of Agent of Influence, together with a transmittal letter (see below) offering to provide to have the Mukasey-Woolsey et.al. team provide its members with a briefing on the wealth of evidence of Grover Norquist’s involvement with and assistance to Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist figures.

In response to this week’s dramatic developments, Mr. Gaffney said:

For sixteen years, it has been evident that Grover Norquist has helped jihadists – including two who were subsequently convicted on terrorism charges – gain access to and influence over conservative organizations, the Republican Party and, most especially, the 2000 campaign and presidency of George W. Bush.  Until now, none of the groups with which he has been associated have been willing to do a serious inquiry into the nature and acceptability of such activities.

Members of the National Rifle Association are to be congratulated for their success in instigating such an investigation, as is Glenn Beck for raising the alarm that precipitated this inquiry and Wayne LaPierre for appreciating that nothing less would be acceptable.  The investigation will be in order and should be rigorously completed –  even if, as seems inevitable, Grover Norquist resigns from the NRA Board.

Secure Freedom letter to the NRA Board of Directors:

Dear [Member of the National Rifle Association Board]:

At the suggestion of Edward Land, Jr., the Secretary of the National Rifle Association, I am writing you directly to apprize you of a serious problem for the NRA Board of Directors, on which you serve.

As you know, Grover Norquist is a fellow member of that Board. I assume you are also aware that his term is up this year and that he is running for reelection. His candidacy has engendered significant controversy and I wanted to make sure you were aware of the reasons why – reasons quite different than those Mr. Norquist shared with some members of the Board in an email last month.

That email is reproduced as Appendix III in the enclosed book entitled Agent of Influence: Grover Norquist and the Assault on the Right; Targeting the NRA. My response – which was meant to be forwarded to you last month, but was not distributed due to what Mr. Land describes as an NRA policy precluding the headquarters from sharing such information with the Board – is at Appendix IV.

I urge you to review the contents of Agent of Influence. From its opening letter (signed by former Bush ’43 Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey, former Clinton Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey and eight other influential national security practitioners) to its last entry – Appendix VI (a letter I sent last week to Gen. Mukasey in response to another illuminating email from Mr. Norquist, this one sent to the former Attorney General in late February), this dossier lays out extensive evidence supporting a most troubling conclusion:

Your fellow board member, Grover Norquist, took at least $20,000 from a known Muslim Brotherhood operative, Abdurahman Alamoudi – a jihadist subsequently convicted on terrorism charges and identified as an al Qaeda financier – to advance the interests of various Islamists, their causes and organizations within conservative movement and Republican Party circles. The beneficiaries of such efforts, which are ongoing, include Alamoudi’s Brotherhood, an organization whose declared purpose is “destroying… Western civilization from within…by their hands [i.e., the infidels’] and the hands of the believers so that God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

For three reasons, it is fortuitous that Grover Norquist’s term on the NRA Board is at an end:

First, I am quite certain that the patriotic membership of the National Rifle Association would not want an individual who has played such a role to hold a position of leadership and trust in their organization.
Second, your Board of Directors has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that the NRA is not subjected to Islamist influence operations of the sort Mr. Norquist has conducted in other conservative organizations and the GOP (as documented in the enclosed book). And,
Third, it ill-serves the National Rifle Association to have its stature and reputation in any way benefit Mr. Norquist’s longstanding campaign to avoid accountability for reprehensible conduct that the organization would never knowingly countenance.

Accordingly, I respectfully suggest that the National Rifle Association should deem Mr. Norquist ineligible to retain a seat on its Board of Directors.

Sincerely,

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
President and CEO

P.S. In light of the national security concerns involved in this matter, it would be advisable for you and your colleagues on the NRA board to hear from the team that transmitted the Norquist dossier to the leadership of the American Conservative Union a year ago. Please let me know if you would like to arrange such a briefing.

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