Just like Obama, Keith Ellison, the anti-Semitic Vice Chair of the DNC, claimed that he had no further connections with Farrakhan and his racist Nation of Islam hate group. And now another piece of the truth is coming out.
When first running for Congress in 2006, Ellison apologized to Jewish leaders and wrote in a letter that "I have long since distanced myself from and rejected the Nation of Islam."
But despite that statement, the Nation of Islam newspaper the Final Call reported that both Ellison and Farrakhan attended a private dinner and "dialogue" hosted by Rouhani when the Iranian president visited the United States in 2013.
"After the guests were hosted at a dinner, the Iranian president entered and engaged in a warm discussion with guests, including Democratic congressmen Greg Meeks of New York and Keith Ellison of Minnesota, who is a Muslim," read the report, unveiled by a Wall Street Journal op-ed last week.
"Abdul Akbar Muhammad, international representative of the Nation of Islam, and Supreme Capt. Mustapha Farrakhan were part of the Nation of Islam delegation," the Final Call report continued.
The Final Call included photos of both Ellison and Farrkhan taking part in the panel discussion, along with Meeks and fellow Democratic Rep. Andre Carson (Ind.).
Farrkhan has long insisted that Ellison's 2006 denouncement was less than genuine. After Ellison again denounced the Nation of Islam during his 2016 run for the DNC chairmanship, Farrakhan claimed that they had privately met only a year earlier.
At this point, there's every reason to believe him. What's striking is the media's incuriosity. The same media that will dig deeply into any potential, real or imagined, Republican scandal, will ignore tips and then ignore the story even once it's published.
But here we have the future DNC Vice Chair at an event hosted by a violently anti-Semitic terrorist regime plotting to murder millions of Jews and whose guests included the leader of a violently anti-Semitic hate group who has praised Hitler.
What is it that makes Rep. Keith Ellison so comfortable in their company?
Ellison was praising “Minister Farrakhan” and defending the Nation of Islam in 1989. Writing as “Keith Hakim”, he whined that the “sensational” news media smears the Nation of Islam as the “black Klu Klux Klan” so it never gets credit for “all of its laudable work.”
And, back in 1989, Keith Ellison was already being condemned for anti-Semitism. The Minnesota Daily opinion editor, Michael Olenick, described Ellison’s writing as "a genuine threat to the long-term safety and well-being of the Jewish people, a threat that history dictates must not be ignored."
"Time and time again my people have been slaughtered after the words of Hakim (Ellison) and those like him influenced the masses," Olenick writes.
In a more recent comment, Olenick compared Ellison to David Duke.
And there will be no consequences for the DNC's normalization of anti-Semitism.