Rep. Chris Stewart on labeling the Muslim Brotherhood as Terrorists: “absolutely needed”

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Frank Gaffney: One of the most impressive men in public life today is our guest for this first segment. A man deeply involved in intelligence matters among other aspects of this war for the free world. He serves, as a matter of fact, as a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, he is also a member of the House Appropriations Committee, a distinguished command pilot in the United States Air Force with world records to his credit, the author of best selling books including a New York Times best seller entitled “The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World”; also, a record in business, but currently happily now representing the people of the second district of Utah, he is Congressman Chris Stewart. Always welcome here sir, thank you very much for joining us again glad to have you.

Rep. Chris Stewart: It’s always a pleasure; you’re way too kind in your introduction though.

FG: It’s just not enough time to do justice to your resume is the trouble, this is only a ten minute segment, but let me just hit you with something substantive. I have not had the chance to talk with you Congressman since Hillary Clinton went before the Select Committee on Benghazi, and there are two sort of topics in particular that I just wanted to get your independent assessment of. One is I think your colleague Jim Jordan made a pretty persuasive case that she had lied, serially really, about the video being the cause of that murderous attack in Benghazi on September 11^th, 2012. The other was on the question of gun running which your colleague Congressman Michael Pompeo raised with her towards the end of it. What are your thoughts on what we learned from all of that and is this in fact a basis for saying ‘wait a minute, you really have disqualified yourself for the presidency’?

CS: Well I guess that’s up to the American voters to decide, but I can’t imagine how they wouldn’t at least consider that. Look, you say he made a persuasive case, I think it was stunning case. There’s just no question that she lied, she did it in a knowing way, in a manipulative way for a political end. There’s no question about that. You know they knew what it was from the very beginning. They knew internally and recognized internally what it was and that they fabricated this story in order to divert from the failures of the President, after he just claimed that al-Qaeda was on the run and the global war on terror was over, and it was very clearly for their own political agenda that they did that, and let me finish up by saying this, you know after the hearings last week you had a lot of the media and a lot of our Democratic friends cooing about the Secretary’s performance and how it put all those questions to rest, and I think time is going to prove that will pass and that what’s going to remain is this idea that she did lie. That the administration did lie about these videos, they did it in a knowing way and that’s the going to be the final, I think, judgment on her appearance before the committee.

FG: Congressman let me turn to another part of this portfolio. Again you’ve been very much involved in the United States military in this war, the kinetic phases of this war for the free world as I call it. A group that has largely been given a pass by the administration as an enemy in that war, in fact they’ve treated it more often as an ally, as a partner, as an outfit they want to empower, is the Muslim Brotherhood. One of your colleagues, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, yesterday joined Senator Cruz in introducing companion legislation that would encourage the designation of the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. What are your thoughts on whether that’s in fact appropriate and needed?

CS: Well of course I think its appropriate and absolutely think it’s needed, and my question is why in the world does it take an act of Congress to get this administration to admit that? If you want to see evidence of their terrorist intent and the organization behind it, look no further than what happened under their leadership in Egypt as just one example, but you know one thing that’s very interesting is this is an organization that’s been around for a long time. They’ve kind of cloaked themselves as a political entity, but they are much more nefarious than that there’s no question about it.

FG: And it’s the civilization jihad piece of it as we’ve discussed on the air and elsewhere Congressman Chris Stewart that worries me as much as the violent part of it, but it’s nefarious and designating as such would be a very helpful thing. Let me ask you about your thoughts, again as a former military man, about the President’s decision now to send 50 United States Special Operators into Syria to contend with some of the folks that we were just talking about he was arming not so long ago. What are your thoughts on the advisability of it and what’s likely to come of it?

CS: Oh my heavens I just don’t even know where to start Frank, I really don’t. I mean I challenge anyone to explain to me the President’s strategy in Syria. You know their stated goal for several years now has been to expedite the removal of Bashar al-Assad and they have no plan at all to accomplish that goal, and I wish I could discuss some of the classified briefings we had on this, but I come out just shaking my head, and I’ll tell you this, the introduction of Russia and Vladimir Putin into the region will be something that we will rue for a generation. There’s just no question about it the fact that we’ve got thousands of Russian soldiers there, thousands of Iranian Shia militia there, as well as others, and we’re going to introduce 50 Special Forces and think that that’s going to make any difference at all, like I said oh my heavens how do I begin to shake my head at this President’s approach in Syria.

FG: This is the challenge of our time of course is wrestling with this global jihad movement, and whether it’s the Brotherhood, or whether it’s the out and out violent jihadists types that we’re dealing with. I think dealing with it without a strategy is a formula for disaster; you understand that better than most. Let me ask you about one other piece of this Congressman. I was very impressed by a new book that has come out by Ted Koppel, one of the country’s foremost experts on all kinds of things I guess as a journalist, but he’s developed a certain expertise about the vulnerability of our electric grid. I’m going to talk to one of your colleagues Congressman Tom Marino about this in a few minutes, but I’d like to get your thoughts on it from several different perspectives. One, he is seized with the problem and I know you have been as well, in fact I think one of your 17 books very much directly address this point, but also a very prominent shout out really is given by Ted Koppel to Mormons who have a tradition, as you know as a member of the Latter Day Saints faith, have preparedness as one of their duties under their faith. Give us a flavor as “A” the problem as you see it and whether this is the kind of thing all of us had better be preparing for especially preparing the country.

CS: Well yeah absolutely you know Ted takes a slightly different approach then I did in my book in the sense he talks about a cyber attack, mine was more with electromagnetic pulse, but the result is much the same, and if there is successful EMP attack which is by the way I think and many agree with me the most likely type of attack that we would encounter, its not a few thousands of us die or a few tens of thousands of us die, its millions of us, hundreds of millions of Americans would die in that type of scenario, and so then that lends us to the second part of the question is how can we prepare for this? And you know you’re right I am Mormon, I am a LDS, and this is something that we’ve said for generations. It’s not because we’re preparing for the apocalypse, not at all. It’s just this basic kind of common sense approach that you should be able to take care of yourself for a few weeks or a few months, and I’ve lived in areas for example when I was in the military along the coast when hurricanes would come in, and heavens people would wait until a half hour before it hits then they run down to the 7/11 and try and buy water, and they couldn’t survive the weekend on the supplies that they had within their own home, and I just think it behooves all of use to take a more rational approach and that is bad things may happen to us and maybe on a catastrophic scale, and if that’s true can we prepare ourselves to kind of take care of ourselves and our family and maybe some people around us.

FG: Well it seems to me that we all have that responsibility, but I think we also have a duty and I known you take this very seriously Congressman Chris Stewart to prepare the country by ensuring the present yawning vulnerabilities whether it’s to EMP, whether it’s to Cyber, whether its to physical attack on our grid are mitigated and we appreciate so much your assistance and leadership in that regard and so many others. There’s only about 25 other things that I wanted to talk with you about Congressman including the National Defense Authorization Act and where that’s likely to go from here after the President vetoed it and this Russian plane that was seemingly taken down, at least that’s kind of my read on it, but that’s for another day I guess. Thank you very much for your time today, for the great work you do in the Intelligence Committee and the Appropriations Committee, and so many other regards, and your larger service to our country. Come back to us again very soon if you would.