There were two people introduced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton inside the Ben Franklin room at a Muslim Eid dinner on September 13th, two days after Muslims attacked two U.S. Embassies and killed four Americans. One of the two people Hillary celebrated Eid with was Libya’s Ambassador to the U.S., Ali Sulaiman Aujali.
The other was an individual who is the focus of this post – Farah Pandith. Clinton introduced Pandith at the 9/13/12 Eid dinner at around the 15:00 mark of this video.
On September 15, 2009 Pandith was sworn in as the U.S. Representative to Muslim Communities in a ceremony over which Clinton presided. Pay close attention to a couple of things. One, take note of the portrait of Thomas Jefferson behind the podium. Two, pay attention starting at the 8:15 mark as Hillary announces that Pandith will be getting sworn in with one hand on the Qur’an:
Before swearing Pandith in, Clinton seemed fixated on creating and establishing dialogue with Muslims all across the world that would focus on “what all of us have in common”. Three years earlier, in 2006, Pandith seemed to demonstrate that she had some things “in common” with the Muslim Brotherhood.
Via GMBDR:
Ms. Pandith was one of the organizers of a March 2006 conference in Belgium called “Muslim Communities Participating in Society: A Belgian-U.S. Dialogue.” The conference brought together the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood with its Belgian/European counterparts and the participating American organizations included all of the major U.S. Brotherhood organizations- the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), and the Muslim Students Association of the US and Canada (MSA).
Hours after Pandith’s swearing in, she spoke at the White House iftar dinner on 9/15/09. Below is video of her speech. At about the 3:00 mark, Pandith makes reference to Huma Abedin while explaining that this particular iftar dinner was the 13th “shared” by both Abedin and Hillary. She later pointed to Hillary Clinton as being responsible for breaking new ground by beginning iftar / Eid celebrations starting in 1999. Hillary later corrected Pandith, saying the practice started in 1996, the same year that Huma Abedin began working with Clinton:
Within the next year, Pandith would meet with some individuals who should have raised some red flags. For example, on October 31, 2009 Pandith was in Saudi Arabia, where she met with the mother of Huma Abedin – Saleha Abedin – at Dar el-Hekma college, where Saleha served as a vice dean after having helped found the college.
Here is a photo of Pandith with Saleha, one of 63 leaders in the Muslim Sisterhood and close friend of Egypt’s first lady Najla Mahmoud, on 10/31/09:
A few months later, Hillary and Huma would visit Dar el-Hekma as well.
Shortly after Hillary’s visit with Saleha in Saudi Arabia, Pandith, by her own admission, traveled to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies (OCIS) where she met with OCIS “Fellows” according to her own twitter feed:
Via the GMBDR:
The Oxford Centere has numerous ties to Saudi Arabia and the global Muslim Brotherhood. For example, the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Oxford Centre is Abdullah Omar Naseef who has held important positions in Saudi Arabia including serving as Vice-President of the Kingdom’s Shura Council, President of King Abdul Aziz University, and was Secretary-General of the Muslim World League (MWL) from 1983-1993. In addition to his role as Oxford Centre Board Chairman, Dr. Naseef has also been associated with other UK Islamist organizations including the Islamic Foundation and the Markfield Institute for Advanced Studies.
Of course, one of the individuals who was a Fellow at OCIS at the time was the brother of Huma Abedin – Hassan Abedin. Moreover, the Chairman of the Board was Abdullah Omar Naseef, the same man who founded the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). IMMA still lists Hassan and Saleha as members of the Editorial Board.
Last month, at the White House iftar dinner, President Barack Obama singled out Huma Abedin so that he could defend her against questions about her background. Also present at the iftar dinner was Farah Pandith, who posted this photo of herself with Huma and and Zeenat Rahman on her facebook page.
She referred to Huma as her “colleague” (Huma on far left, Pandith on far right):
Based on what we know about Huma Abedin’s familial ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, coupled with what we know about Farah Pandith’s willingness to both refer to her as a “colleague” and visit with “Fellows” of the OCIS, which included Naseef, Huma’s brother, and the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood – Yusuf al-Qaradawi – at the time, a look into Pandith’s background (Form 86) might be in order as well.
Did I mention she was sworn while placing one hand on the Qur’an?
Ben Barrack is a talk show host and author of the book, Unsung Davids