Philip Haney tells all on SFR

Frank Gaffney: Welcome to Secure Freedom Radio. This is Frank Gaffney, your host and guide for what I think of as an intelligence briefing on the war for the free world. A man whose intelligence has impressed me greatly and my gratitude to him for bringing it to bear for many years on behalf of our country really knows no bounds. It is always a pleasure to welcome him to our program, especially under circumstances we’ll be discussing momentarily. He is of course, Phillip Haney – a retired founding member of the Department of Homeland Security, having served as a customs and border protection officer. He has specialized in the Islamic theology and the tactics of the global jihad movement. He is the coauthor with Art Moore of a best selling new book, “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad.” You have probably caught Phil on a number of media appearances including earlier today cohosting with another of our colleagues, Rich Higgins – a longtime member of the Department of Defense; Sean Hannity’s radio program. So between that and testimony that he gave last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he is the man about town. We are very glad to catch him for a few moments of his time. Phil Haney welcome back to Secure Freedom Radio.

Phillip Haney: Thank you very much. I appreciate being here.

Frank Gaffney: Phil, I want to start I guess with sort of your take away from the hearing that Senator Cruz convened in the Senate Judiciary Oversight subcommittee in which you appeared with several all stars in our counter jihad team. Talk a little bit about the subject matter of the hearing and what you think was its most important take aways.

Phillip Haney: The title was ‘Willful Blindness: How the Obama Administration has overlooked the nature of the threat’. My take away after a few days to look back on it was the fact between the four of us we discussed sharia law – the nature of the threat we face, more than in any time in the history of Congress. That’s not just my opinion. I got some feedback afterwards the follow day and that is how they characterized it. They considered it to be one of the most important hearings ever held on the Hill. We focused specifically on sharia law. All four of us – Sudhi Jasser, Chris Gowitz, Andrew McCarthy, and myself were consistent in our testimony. We didn’t rehearse. We didn’t practice beforehand. We just gave our testimony and we consistently focused on sharia law.

Frank Gaffney: Phil in addition to the three other of our colleagues that appeared with you and the important testimony that they gave, there were several others who were I guess the democratic witnesses. Tell us who they were and what your thoughts were about their testimony.

Phillip Haney: Well I happened to sit right inbetween [Farhana Cara] on my right who is the author and leading promoter of this disconnect between law enforcement and counter terrorism and on my left was Mr. Cohen from the Southern Poverty Law Center, who have between them both have been some of our most implacable adversaries over the years. What I found most remarkable about [Farhana Cara’s] statement was when she said that she didn’t know of any radical imams in the United States. If you pause for a moment and think about what she actually said especially in light of our emphasis on sharia law you come to the conclusion that if she doesn’t consider imams who are openly promoting sharia law in real time here in the United States today as being radical then she’s essentially promoting the overthrow of the US Constitution because if that’s not radical, then I don’t know how to define radical. It’s the most radical thing you can do is to essentially ideologically and politically seek the overthrow of the US Constitution.

Frank Gaffney: But this brings me to the testimony of Secretary Jay Johnson, under whom you served for a time I believe. Jay was asked by the man who presided over your hearing, but then on Thursday was just a member of the full Senate judiciary committee, Senator Ted Cruz, about specifically your testimony. Give us a flavor of what Secretary Johnson said about his understanding of your warnings and experiences and what you made of it.

Phillip Haney: Well as I outline in the book, “See Something, Say Nothing,” it’s been an astonishing journey, very surreal at times and frightening in others. It was a culminating experience. I happened to have the fortune of listening to it live and I have to say that I myself was astonished at the arrogance and disdain, dismissive attitude of Secretary Jay Johnson when he made statements such as “I wouldn’t know if he walked into the room.” As Secretary of Homeland Security – yes, yeah that was also the surreal part of it – as they were talking about my testimony. And that is a strange feeling to hear yourself discussed at that level between Senator Cruz and Secretary of Homeland Security Jay Johnson. This is the Senate oversight committee. This is not just an ordinary, if there is any such a thing, this is an oversight committee hearing.

Frank Gaffney: Phil let me just point out that what made this all the more remarkable of course wasn’t just that you had testified rather pointedly about all this two days before, but you had been warning about what had happened to you and your investigations and files you had created on enemies internal to this country that had been destroyed way back in December of last year. And this guy is professing he knows nothing of you or hadn’t looked into your charges and seemed quite indifferent to them.

Phillip Haney: Any corporate manager whatever arena you might be in business, politics, counterterrorism – when a straightforward claim is made about your performance and capabilities and your job as a manager, the first thing you would be doing is have a staff meeting the following morning of December 11^th – after I went on Megyn Kelly. I would ask two questions – is Mr. Haney’s testimony credible? If it isn’t we need to find out and discredit him immediately; shut him down. Or is his testimony believable, truthful, credible? And if it is then we need to look into it. But for the Secretary of Homeland Security to say that he doesn’t even know me, and then to go and say, “Nope, we haven’t taken time to look into it or investigate it.” To me, I was completely astonished in one way but sadly in another way not because that was the perfect illustration of exactly the way the agency responded to me all the years I was active duty.

Frank Gaffney: Phil, this brings me to the last item I want to cover with you. And that is today, Majority leader in the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, and the Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCall are going to be pushing forward legislation that would seemingly facilitate and institutionalize this kind of willful blindness. Quickly, your thoughts on that legislation?

Phillip Haney: Well the problem with that is that it is doomed to fail from the start. And the reason why is that it is focused on a tactic – violent extremism, jihadism, attacks. These here are all tactics but they don’t discuss the strategy. What is the real gravitational force behind all of this violence? The implementation of sharia law. And until we have the courage to face that reality, it doesn’t matter how many bills are passed in Congress if they don’t address it they will be doomed to fail. We are seeing a morphing of tactics right now globally vis-à-vis ISIS and the other Sunni Salafi groups like in Bangladesh for example. We are going to see more and more of them. We need to find the courage to face this directly and call it what it is. Passing bills on tactics instead of the real strategy will never work.

Frank Gaffney: Especially those that would have the practical effect of continuing the reliance on so called non-violent, but nonetheless jihadists of the Muslim Brotherhood stripe for guidance as to how to proceed in dealing with this larger threat. Phil Haney we have to leave it at that but I look forward to further conversations with you in the near future.