Excerpt:
The FBI's outreach efforts to the Council on American-Islamic Relations have been counterproductive, according to an expert at a Senate hearing on countering violent Islamism who called the group an extension of the extremist Muslim Brotherhood.
Although other witnesses told the Senate Homeland Security panel that communication with CAIR is beneficial, Zeyno Baran, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank, said its relationship with the FBI leaves agents ill-prepared to work with the American Muslim community.
"For months now, FBI agents have been trained by CAIR to be sensitive to Muslims," she said. "This is completely self-defeating."
Baran said she believes CAIR was founded by the Muslim Brotherhood to influence U.S. officials, and works not as a faith group but as one with a political agenda of Islamism, a philosophy that treats Islam as a political ideology.