US media is reporting that the US State Department has acknowledged that it gave out incorrect information when it said that the recent Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood delegation to the US had been sponsored by Georgetown University. According to a report by the Washington Free Beacon, the delegation was actually sponsored by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID):
The State Department admitted on Monday that it misled reporters about a recent delegation of Muslim Brotherhood leaders and allies who were hosted for a meeting with officials at Foggy Bottom.
State Department spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki claimed last week that the controversial delegation of key Brotherhood leaders and allies had been ‘organized and funded by Georgetown University.’
However, the university denied this is the case when reached by the Washington Free Beacon.
Psaki clarified her original comments made on Jan. 29 during a Monday meeting with reporters.
The meeting between the Brotherhood allies and the State Department sparked controversy in Washington and Cairo, where Egyptian government officials expressed anger at the Obama administration for hosting representatives of a group they consider to be terrorists.
The State Department meeting was attended by a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor and other State Department officials.
While Psaki continued to defend the decision to host the Brotherhood allies at the State Department, she clarified that Georgetown actually had nothing to do with the delegation.
‘Unfortunately, I didn’t have the accurate information on one small piece. The meeting was set up by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, a nonprofit. So the visit was not funded, as you know, by us or the U.S. Government, but it was also not funded by Georgetown,’ Psaki said.
Read the rest here.
The GMBDW had reported earlier this week that according to a US State Department spokesman, the recent Brotherhood delegation had their trip organized and funded by Georgetown University. We reported last week that the State Department had hosted the delegation for a meeting to discuss their efforts to oppose the current government in Egypt. As that post pointed out, another event was held and hosted by the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) at which the Brotherhood delegation also appeared. As our profile on CSID explains, the organization was founded in 1998 in what appears to have been a cooperative effort among the US Muslim Brotherhood, the US State Department and Georgetown University academic Dr. John Esposito who served during the 1990’s as a State Department “foreign affairs analyst” and who has at least a dozen past or present affiliations with global Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas organizations.
For a profile on CSID, go here.