U.S. Muslim 'Radicals' Hearing Set

Threatening phone calls, denunciations from civil liberty and religious groups and pleas from more than 50 of his House colleagues will not stop Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) from holding a hearing on radicalization in the U.S. Muslim community.

As chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, King is set to open the hearing Thursday morning, saying he is fulfilling his congressional duty and probing one of the most serious threats to national security.

But King’s critics argue that the hearing — called “The extent of radicalization in the American Muslim community and that community's response” — unfairly targets Muslim Americans and will likely widen the divide between them and law enforcement. It could even spur more extremists to action, critics say.

A group of 56 Democratic lawmakers wrote to King on Wednesday in a last-ditch effort to get him to call the hearing off. They said “the stated narrow scope and underlying premises of these hearings unfairly stigmatizes and alienates Muslim Americans.”

The committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson (Miss.), last month asked King to broaden the scope of the hearing to encompass neo-Nazis and environmental extremists. King said he “will not allow political correctness to obscure a real and dangerous threat to the safety and security of the citizens of the United States.”

King announced plans for the hearing in December and has never wavered since. He said he has received threatening phone calls, some from overseas. He’s receiving increased protection and authorities are investigating the matter, he said.

In defending the hearing, King said he doesn’t want to feel guilty for not going forward in case another attack, like that of Sept. 11, 2001, takes place. Instead, he has blamed the mainstream media for inciting the public over an issue he says is vital to the national security — and which has not been adequately addressed so far.

“What are they afraid of? What are they hiding from? Why are they attacking me in such a rabid way?” King told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier this week. “I can take the hits, that doesn’t bother me at all.

“I don’t ever want it on my conscience that if another attack comes, I wake up the next morning and say, ‘I backed down to political correctness, I backed down to The Washington Post, or the left-wing New York Times, because I was afraid of political retribution.’

I’m going to do what I have to do, and I’m going to do it.”

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