The intelligence community knew outside instigators were involved in protests on U.S. college campuses before the media did, but it was "distracted by what they call the 'MAGA movement,'" Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Newsmax Saturday.
Asked about the origins of recent protests, Mullin told "America Right Now," "I believe we do know, and we have got briefings on this. This is just now coming out. We already knew this. For those that received briefings, we knew it for sure. But the media is just now starting to release it."
He added, "You know, this is something that they have been so distracted by, and the intelligence community has been so distracted by what they call the MAGA movement, and they described it as a domestic terrorist takeover that they were taking their eyes off, actually, the terrorist organizations that were actually taking place."
The senator condemned the infiltration of radical ideologies on college campuses, citing instances in which wearing MAGA attire was deemed hate speech.
"It was just a few years ago that if you wore a MAGA hat on a campus like Columbia, it was considered hate speech, and it made other people feel uncomfortable. And they would literally remove you from the campus, and now they have these agitators that have been openly operating."
He alleged a failure to act swiftly against agitators who openly identify with terrorist organizations led to protest expansion.
"They've recruited over half their organization of student body; individuals influence them," he said. "I mean, they're telling people they are a terrorist organization. And we could have stopped this when it first started. If the administration had come out strong, called the individuals that were actually providing the agitators and the funding behind this, and quit allowing them to operate inside the United States, we could have already done this."
Mullin referenced an offer from Yemen's Houthi rebels, which reportedly extended scholarships to protesters.
"I don't know if you saw this, but the Houthis had given all these individuals, as protesters at these campuses, free scholarships to come to Yemen and go to school out there," he said. "How about [they] take the Houthis up on their proposal?"
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