Founder Of Anti-Muslim Group Says She’s Attending White House Meeting

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The founder of the anti-Muslim group ACT for America claimed Monday night that she would be attending a meeting at the White House.

Brigitte Gabriel asked readers for advice on what to bring up in the meeting:

A White House official told TPM that they were “not aware” of any meeting with Gabriel at the White House.

ACT is known for its extensive grassroots structure of hundreds of local chapters, which play host to a traveling circuit of “counter-terrorism” and anti-Muslim speakers. BuzzFeed noted Monday that ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn called Islam a “cancer” at an ACT meeting.

Gabriel (born Hanah Kahwagi Tudor), the Southern Poverty Law Center noted in a profile, once told the Australian Jewish News that “[e]very practicing Muslim is a radical Muslim.”

Gabriel said during a panel at the Heritage Foundation in 2014 that 15 to 25 percent of all Muslims worldwide were “radicals” dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization. Gabriel later criticized a Muslim law student who asked a question at that event for not asking about the four Americans killed in the 2012 Benghazi attacks, the panel’s topic.

“No White House official should be meeting with the leader of a hate group that is one of the main sources of growing anti-Muslim bigotry in our nation,” Council on American-Islamic Relations Executive Director Nihad Awad said in a statement Tuesday. “This meeting should be canceled immediately and an explanation should be offered as to why it was scheduled in the first place.”

Later Tuesday, Gabriel posted pictures on her Facebook account from the White House. The White House has not responded to TPM’s questions about the pictures:

This post has been updated.

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