An Internet news portal has reported that FBI Director Robert Mueller has defended the FBI’s Muslim outreach program which has been criticized for lending legitimacy to groups comprising the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. According to the report, Mueller stated:
“And every opportunity I have, I reaffirm the fact that 99.9 percent of Muslim-Americans or Sikh-Americans, Arab-Americans are every bit as patriotic as anybody else in this room, and that many of our cases are a result of the cooperation from the Muslim community in the United States,” Mueller said.
Mueller did not identify any specific cases which might have been the result of cooperation with any of the groups in question.
As if to confirm the critics position the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a part of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, immediately cited these remarks in a press release which:
…offered assistance in providing a balanced and accurate portrayal of Islam and Muslims to Pennsylvania police officers by providing access to “respected mainstream Islamic scholars and community leaders.
Previous posts have discussed cooperation between the FBI and CAIR in connection to law enforcement training, a policy which appears to be controversial within the agency.