by Peter Hasson
- Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, deputy DNC chair, claimed on Sunday that he hasn’t met with Farrakhan since crossing paths with him at two 2013 meetings
- Ellison, a former Nation of Islam member, claimed for years that he cut all ties to Farrakhan since running for Congress in 2006
- Ellison disputed Farrakhan’s account that he and Indiana Rep. Andre Carson visited the hate group leader in his hotel room in 2015
- Carson has already confirmed his own presence at the 2015 meeting
Under
fire over his ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan,
Democratic Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison claimed Sunday that he hasn’t
attended any meetings with Farrakhan since 2013 and “never had” a
relationship with him.
Farrakhan is a notorious
anti-Semite and racist whose organization teaches that white people are
inherently inferior to black people. Ellison, the deputy chair of the
Democratic National Committee (DNC), is a former Nation of Islam member
who claimed when he first ran for Congress in 2006 that he had left
Farrakhan in his past.
New reporting has shown, however, that Ellison attended multiple meetings with Farrakhan while
in Congress. That includes a private visit to Farrakhan’s hotel room in
2015 with Democratic Indiana Rep. Andre Carson. Farrakhan referenced
the meeting in a December 2016 Facebook video, and Carson has confirmed
that he was present. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Ellison about that
meeting, the congressman did not deny that the meeting took place but instead lashed out at his critics.
Ellison lashed out at his critics again in a blog post on Sunday,
claiming that he never had a relationship with Farrakhan and hasn’t met
him since 2013, apparently contradicting Farrakhan and Carson’s
accounts. Ellison did confirm his presence at two Farrakhan meetings
that took place in 2013. Ellison claimed questions about his Farrakhan
ties are “a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish
community and the Black community against each other.”
“I
do not have and have never had a relationship with Mr. Farrakhan, but I
have been in the same room as him,” Ellison wrote. “About a decade ago,
he and I had a brief, chance encounter in Washington, D.C. In 2013, I
attended a meeting in New York City with Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani and nearly 50 others where I advocated for the release of an
American political prisoner. I didn’t know Mr. Farrakhan would be there
and did not speak to him at the event. Contrary to recent reports, I
have not been in any meeting with him since then, and he and I have no
communication of any kind.”
"But as the attacks on me and my fellow Black representatives in Congress intensify, I want to be clear: this is a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish community and the Black community against each other, and distract from the hatred and bigotry on display by the president and the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville this summer with their anti-Semitic chants and Confederate flags. I declined to dignify questions raised about Mr. Farrakhan because I know they are inherently political, and are designed to separate me from people who I work with every day on issues of importance for Americans of all backgrounds,” Ellison continued.
“The
critics will not be satisfied. They won’t be satisfied any more than
President Obama’s production of his birth documents satisfied his
critics, or Hillary Clinton’s eleven-hour testimony before the House
Select Committee on Benghazi sated her detractors,” he added. Ellison’s
blog post comes as he is increasingly under fire over his ties to
Farrakhan.
The Washington Post awarded Ellison “Four Pinocchios,” their worst possible rating, for claiming that his relationship with Farrakhan ended in 2006. The post cited The Daily Caller’s reporting in the fact-check.
Democratic
Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, who has repeatedly praised Farrakhan,
compared Ellison’s relationship to Farrakhan to a fallen-away
Christian’s relationship to Jesus in an interview with The Daily Caller
News Foundation earlier this month.
“I don’t know that
Keith knows Farrakhan as well as I do — in fact, I know he doesn’t,”
Davis said. “I don’t think that Keith is no person who is super engaged
with Farrakhan, he just happens to be a movement. Just like many of the
folks who are Christians, they’re not super engaged with Jesus, but they
say they Christians,” Davis said.
Women’s March organization,
a prominent left-wing activist group, has come under fire as well after
their leaders expressed support for Farrakhan. The group’s
co-president, Tamika Mallory, attended Farrakhan’s annual Saviour’s Day
speech last month where he railed against Jews and white people. Mallory
defended Farrakhan after suffering backlash by implying that religious
leaders are supposed to consider Jews their enemies. “If your leader
does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!”
Mallory wrote on Twitter. She has repeatedly declined to condemn
Farrakhan.
Women’s March has lost supporters over the Farrakhan scandal, and several regional chapters have slammed the national organization for refusing to denounce him. The group’s social media director, Alyssa Klein, resigned over the group’s support for Farrakhan, the New York Post reports.
A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.