Secretive And Influential US Right-Wing Coalition Includes Well-Known Anti-Muslim Figures

The South­ern Pover­ty Law Cen­ter is report­ing on the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy described as a “secre­tive and influ­en­tial right-wing coali­tion”, includ­ing anti-Mus­lim hate fig­ures, and which focus­es on polit­i­cal strat­e­gy, media, and grass­roots orga­niz­ing. Accord­ing to the SPLC report:

May 27, 2021 Islam­o­pho­bia has a pres­ence with­in the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy, a secre­tive and influ­en­tial right-wing coali­tion, accord­ing to leaked doc­u­ments reviewed by Hate­watch. A cache of doc­u­ments obtained and pub­lished by the inves­tiga­tive research orga­ni­za­tion Doc­u­ment­ed appears to show anti-Mus­lim hate group lead­ers such as Brigitte Gabriel, Frank Gaffney and oth­ers who have stoked Islam­o­pho­bia are involved with the Coun­cil for Nation­al Pol­i­cy, or CNP. The doc­u­ments also reveal that the coali­tion has pro­mot­ed poli­cies cham­pi­oned by the broad­er anti-Mus­lim net­work. Found­ed in 1981, CNP is a coali­tion of influ­en­tial right-wing lead­ers, polit­i­cal oper­a­tives, con­ser­v­a­tive media fig­ures, mem­bers of the reli­gious right, free-mar­ket fun­da­men­tal­ists and donors. The coali­tion oper­ates on mul­ti­ple fronts and focus­es on polit­i­cal strat­e­gy, media and grass­roots orga­niz­ing. The goal of the coali­tion is to advo­cate for right-wing and anti-rights poli­cies that favor con­ser­v­a­tives and the reli­gious right. CNP has a habit of cozy­ing up to extreme fig­ures, the coalition’s ros­ters and asso­ci­a­tions appear to show. This includes fig­ures known for engag­ing in anti-Mus­lim hate.

Read there rest here.

The report goes on to note that the Coun­cil “enjoyed unprece­dent­ed access to the White House under Trump, meet­ing with his staff on numer­ous occa­sions” and iden­ti­fies well-known anti-Muslm fig­ure Frank Gaffney as its exec­u­tive chairman:

Anoth­er anti-Mus­lim fig­ure­head involved with CNP is Frank Gaffney. A for­mer Ronald Rea­gan admin­is­tra­tion staffer, Gaffney has since become one of the most pro­lif­ic anti-Mus­lim pro­pa­gan­dists in the coun­try. He is gripped by para­noid fan­tasies of for­eign enti­ties such as the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood infil­trat­ing and sup­plant­i­ng the U.S. from with­in. Gaffney found­ed the anti-Mus­lim hate group Cen­ter for Secu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy and now serves in an exec­u­tive chair­man­ship role at the group.

In 2016 the Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood Dai­ly Watch, our pre­de­ces­sor pub­li­ca­tion, report­ed that the Trump Admin­is­tra­tion was con­sid­er­ing appoint­ing Claire Lopez, a close asso­ciate of Frank Gaffney, to the posi­tion of Deputy Nation­al Secu­ri­ty Advi­sor. The appoint­ment sub­se­quent­ly did not materialize.