CNN "Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees" - Transcript

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

COOPER: Let me ask you just on two things. One, she's saying you have a long record of being associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Is that true?

REP. KEITH ELLISON (D), MINNESOTA: No. That's not true.

COOPER: Do you support the Muslim Brotherhood?

ELLISON: I don't support any organization that -- I support American institutions.

I don't know enough about them. What I know about them is that in Egypt, one of their candidates has ascended to the presidency. I have never met that person. But I do think the United States should have a foreign policy where we talk to foreign leaders of all kinds. But, no, I don't have any -- I don't have any Muslim Brotherhood connections that she's talking about.

COOPER: And when she says that you are trying to shut down their investigation, what do you make of that?

ELLISON: I'm absolutely not trying to shut down their investigation. What I'm trying to do is to raise a concern about unfounded allegations of disloyalty, specifically with regard to Huma Abedin and a few other people who she mentioned. But there is -- if she has legitimate evidence, she should go forward.

All I do is ask her to put up the proof.

COOPER: We called the inspectors general involved here. Two of the five agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, told us they had no plans to investigate.

And both were clear that a request like this is outside the inspectors general mandate, saying that they look at the effectiveness of programs. They look for waste, fraud, abuse. Wouldn't members of Congress and/or their staffs know that?

ELLISON: Yes, members of Congress would know that very well.

But you have to ask yourself, you know, why did she make this so public? Why did she seem to be seeking public attention for these allegations she was making? If she really had actionable intelligence, why wouldn't she go to the agencies that investigate these things?

I think the answer is clear, that she wanted attention. That was her goal all along.

COOPER: It's about politics, it's about fund-raising, it's about attention?

ELLISON: Yes, but it's also about making -- it is also -- I think it is those things, but it's also about marginalizing and alienating a certain group of Americans who she does not view all American enough.

COOPER: Because it does seem like basically she's painting with a very broad brush Muslims in this country. I mean, you suddenly now are associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, Huma Abedin's father is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, her brother is part of the Muslim Brotherhood, even though there's no direct evidence of this.

And as we talked about, you know, she's raising questions about Huma Abedin herself. It does seem she sort of is using the term Muslim Brotherhood interchangeably with the term Muslim.

ELLISON: Right.

And one of the things that compelled me to step forward on this issue is that I believe Huma Abedin is going to be fine. She has an impeccable reputation. She's going to be OK. But what about some mid-level person whose name may be Mohammed or Ahmed or just be a Muslim, but who's doing a good job and has been a loyal American?

Is her kind of allegation going to have such a chilling effect that a person like that is going to come under suspicion? These are the things that make me worry. COOPER: In the interview, she talks about the FBI, saying -- quote -- "The FBI, who are supposed to be trained in radical Islam, elements have been purged of their training materials, so they're no longer being taught about what radical Islam is in order to be able to truly identify it ahead of time."

Is that your understanding of what happened? Because, according to the FBI, they removed documents and some presentations that they said stereotyped Islam or were factually inaccurate in their training materials.

ELLISON: Yes.

On the training material issue, they had a whole host of materials that were simply inaccurate and, in many cases, biased. And they tried to improve their training presentation, which I think is good and we applaud it. The fact of the matter is, when law enforcement is trying to improve how it does law enforcement, we should applaud that.

But, apparently, she wanted to keep in the biased, inaccurate material so that people would be trained on improper material and perhaps engage in profiling or whatever else because of it.

But, you know, it's just one of those situations where if good people will stand up and say this is wrong, we can put a stop to it. I'm glad that this story has gotten a lot of attention because we need a reminder every once in a while, you know, that this is a country of laws and not individual persons, and that proof is needed, not just allegation. I mean, this is why I'm glad this story has gotten a little bit of attention.

COOPER: Well, Congressman Ellison, I appreciate your time tonight.

Thank you, sir.

ELLISON: Thank you, sir.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source