While appearing on Fox News host Sean Hannity’s show Monday, former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik falsely claimed Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) is “infatuated with Al Qaeda, with Hamas, Hezbollah,” continuing the stream of Islamophobic attacks from right-wing media and conservative politicians, including President Donald Trump, targeted at the Muslim congresswoman.
Hannity concurred with Kerik, who added that Omar “was the keynote speaker” for an event by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) — falsely claiming the group is “a terrorist organization,” a designation lobbed by some critics of the Muslim civil rights group.
Kerik served three years in prison for charges of corruption and lying to White House officials when he was considered for President George W. Bush’s cabinet.
Last week, conservative media latched onto an out-of-context comment Omar made at the CAIR event last month, in which she described 9/11 as “some people did something.”
Omar was discussing the ways Muslims in the U.S. were blamed for the attacks and experienced increased amounts of Islamophobic hate.
“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” she said.
The organization, formed in 1994, stepped up its work in response to the Islamophobia following the Sept. 11 attacks.
“Far too long we have lived with the discomfort of being a second-class citizen,” Omar said during the speech. “Frankly, I’m tired of it, and every single Muslim in this country should be tired of it.”
Since last week, Omar, one of two Muslim women in Congress and the subject of repeated Islamophobic attacks, has received death threats in response to the uproar over the comments.