Jimmy Carter Will Speak to Group Linked to Muslim Brotherhood

Former President Jimmy Carter will speak to a group linked by the Justice Department to the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, says a spokesman for the Clarion Project.

"This is not a moderate organization that is worthy of the prestige of a former president," Ryan Mauro said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "The Kelly File." 

The Islamic Society of North America's annual convention will be held in Detroit Aug. 29-Sept. 1, Mauro wrote in an article on the Clarion Project's website. 

"The U.S. Justice Department labeled ISNA an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism-financing trial in American history and listed the group as a Muslim Brotherhood entity," Mauro wrote.

Typical speakers at the group's conferences show a consistent pattern of people who say sharia law should be instituted in the United States," Mauro told Fox News, and on Memorial Day two of this year's speakers questioned whether fallen U.S. soldiers should be honored.

The group's public relations strategy is to define itself as moderate and representative of most Muslim Americans, Mauro said, but he argued that that they aren't necessarily moderates just because they condemn al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks.

The group also calls Hamas members killed by Israelis "martyrs" and says suicide bombings are justified, he said.

He also pointed to a 2011 Gallup poll showing that only 4 percent of Muslim American males and 7 percent of females see ISNA as the group most representing their interests.

The big question, Mauro told Fox News, is, "how does this happen? It's hard to get the attention of a former president of the United States. What is it about this organization that gave it access to him?"

The problem is a lax vetting process, he said, noting that the George W. Bush administration also worked with the group after 9/11 and evangelical pastor Rick Warren has spoken to the group.

At last year's conference, President Barack Obama delivered a videotaped address.

This year's speaker lineup also includes Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who said in 1992, "If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate."

Imam Zaid Shakir, another speaker this year, has said the U.S. Constitution is inferior to sharia because it grants equality to Muslims and non-Muslims.

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