Earlier this week and mostly beneath the radar a delegation of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood made an official visit to the State Department. In case your memory needs refreshing, the Muslim Brotherhood is a hardline Islamist group that gained control of Egypt after the ouster of Mubarak… and lasted until their rapacity and stupidity couldn’t be tolerated by the Egyptian army. The Muslim Brotherhood is a violent organization that has avoided being classified as a terrorist organization because the idiots in the State Department that oversee our Middle East policy think it is a “moderate group.”

As federal prosecutors showed during the Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism financing trial in American history, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee raised millions for Hamas here in the United States. The judge in the case wrote in an opinion that there was “ample evidence” establishing the association between Muslim Brotherhood groups here in the US with Hamas. The convictions of the Holy Land Foundation executives have been upheld by the US Supreme Court.

This was one of the reasons why FBI director Robert Mueller testified before Congress in February 2011 that “elements of the Muslim Brotherhood both here and overseas have supported terrorism.”

The US government has designated branches, charities and leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood. US government officials have said that the Muslim Brotherhood around the world has supported terrorist groups. And the Justice Department has prosecuted elements of the Muslim Brotherhood here in the US for materially supporting terrorism.

When confronted about the visit of what is essentially a “shadow parliament” seeking to regain power, State Department assclown spokesperson Jen Psaki tried to give a non-answer:

QUESTION: Members of Muslim Brothers were in town, and few days ago they met – had meetings in this building. Do you have any like – any details about the meeting, the nature of the meeting, the purpose of the meeting, and whom they met?

MS. PSAKI: Well, State Department officials meet – recently met with a group of visiting Egyptian former parliamentarians whose visit to the United States was organized and funded by Georgetown University. Such meetings are fairly routine at the State Department where we regularly meet with political party leaders from across the world. The Georgetown group included former members of the Freedom and Justice Party, among others. So this was a meeting – we meet on a regular basis with a range of groups, and obviously, as I mentioned, this was a group sponsored by Georgetown.

The meeting was attended by a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor, and other State Department officials.

QUESTION: The reason I’m asking: because you said Georgetown University, because they are in town and they were talking about – first, they are representing alternative parliament whatever, and beside that they were talking about political solution and being representative of an alternative government for Egypt. Do you have anything to say about that?

MS. PSAKI: I don’t. This was a diverse group of former parliamentarians. I don’t think I have much more than I just offered.

Less than two days after the visit, the Muslim Brotherhood issued an interesting statement:

The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week.

The Free Beacon goes on to provide a translation of the statement:

“It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom,” it states.

Preparation for jihad is a key theme of the Brotherhood’s latest call for jihad.

An image posted with the statement shows two crossing swords and the word “prepare!” between them. Below the swords it reads, “the voice of truth, strength, and freedom.” According to the statement, “that is the motto of the Dawa of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The statement also invokes the well-known Muslim cleric Imam al-Bana, who founded the Brotherhood and has called for the death of Jews.

The administration is gradually aligning the United States with the worst possible forces in the Middle East. We are working hand in glove with the Iranians, essentially acting as an air force to their militias in Iraq and Syria. And now we are meeting with a violent, quasi-terrorist organization unambiguously calling for attacks on Israel. A nation whose prime minister Obama refuses to meet with.

NOTE ON THE IMAGE: the man in the image is Waleed Sharaby, is a secretary-general of the Egyptian Revolutionary Council and a spokesman for Judges for Egypt, a group reported to have close ties to the Brotherhood. The “gangsta” hand sign he is flashing is the R4bia sign which expresses solidarity with the Muslim Brotherhood.