Fake News: Keith Ellison Lies to Politico About 11 Years Support for Nation of Islam

You can headline that as the story about nearly every interview that Keith Ellison does. But Glen Thrush at Politico seems perfectly happy to put out Fake News about Keith Ellison. No Republican involved with the KKK would get this kind of a pass.  But progressives involved with racist and anti-Semitic hate groups get a whitewash, as Scott Johnson, who has done the definitive work on Ellison, notes.

In Glen Thrush's Politico whitewash of Keith Ellison, his time with a racist hate group is treated as a partisan inconvenience.

The Minnesota congressman — a powerful speaker and canny political organizer — was on the cusp of an easy victory in the race for DNC chairman until the past few weeks, when his decades-old writings on the Nation of Islam leader (he called him a “role model for Black Youth” in a 1995 student editorial) resurfaced and ignited.

“Everything is fair game and it’s interesting. … [But] I’m 53 years old,” Ellison said during this week’s episode of POLITICO’s “Off Message” podcast — adding that his fondness for the Nation of Islam movement began when he was a student and lapsed soon after. 

The impression that Keith Ellison tries to create and that Glen Thrush attempts to sustain is that this is something that happened when Ellison was a "student" back around 1995. And ended then.

Nope. As this timeline from Scott Johnson at Powerline shows.

1987–Ellison enrolls in University of Minnesota Law School

1989–Ellison publishes the first of two articles in the University of Minnesota Daily under the alias “Keith Hakim.” In the first such article, Ellison speaks up for the Nation of Islam.

1990–Ellison participates in the sponsorship of the anti-Semitic speech by Kwame Ture given at the University of Minnesota Law School (“Zionism: Imperialism, White Supremacy or Both?”). Ellison rejects the appeal of Jewish law students to withdraw sponsorship of the lecture. Ellison graduates from University of Minnesota Law School.

Note that Ellison at this point isn't a kid just because he's a student. He's a 27-year-old man promoting anti-Semitism as part of his ties to an anti-Semitic hate group. But it doesn't stop here.

1997–Ellison appears under alias “Keith Ellison-Muhammad” at Minnesota Initiative Against Racism hearing in support of Joanne Jackson. Ellison defends “the truth” of Jackson’s statement that “Jews are the most racist white people.” 

Keith Ellison is now 34.

He's been associated with a racist hate group for eight years. Or much of his adult life. And he begins his political career based on his Nation of Islam membership.

1998–Ellison first runs for DFL endorsement for state representative. Ellison identifies himself as member of Nation of Islam in Insight News article on his candidacy. Ellison runs for endorsement under alias “Keith Ellison-Muhammad.”

2000–Ellison gives speech supporting Kathleen Soliah/Sara Jane Olson at National Lawyers Guild fundraiser. Demands Soliah/Olson’s release. Asks audience to recall time when “Qubilah Shabazz was prosecuted in retribution against Minister Farrakhan.”

2000 is the last time that Keith X. Ellison is clearly aligned with the Nation of Islam. By then Keith Ellison is not a "student". He's a 37-year-old man.

He's been involved or supportive of an anti-Semitic hate group for eleven years. He only officially disavows it in 2006 making it entirely possible that he was involved with it well into his forties. Either way he blatantly lies about his time with the hate group in 2006. And he's been lying about it ever since with the complicity of the media.

Now the media's eagerness to cover up for Keith Ellison is blowing up his candidacy. Because the facts are blatant and they are public. And no amount of lying about them can cover them up.

When Keith Ellison lies about his time with the Nation of Islam, he's not just showing that he was a racist anti-Semite for 11 years. But that he refuses to truly come clean about it. And that raises the possibility that he's lying about his disavowal of the hate group. That he might still share some of its hateful views.