Republican congressional candidate Kenneth Timmerman has joined U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s call for an investigation into whether the Muslim Brotherhood has penetrated the federal government in an effort to overthrow the U.S. Constitution and replace it with a form of Muslim law.

Bachmann, the former Republican presidential candidate from Minnesota, and four other Republicans in the House had written five letters asking for the investigation, leading U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to join Democrats in criticizing her.

But Timmerman, who is the Republican nominee in the 8th District opposing Democratic U.S. Rep. Christopher Van Hollen Jr. in November, issued a statement Wednesday firing back at those taking issue with Bachmann’s inquiry and took her side. Timmerman covered the Mideast as a journalist and author and is executive director of the Center for Democracy in Iran.

“That’s demagoguing the issue,” Timmerman said of those criticizing Bachmann. “And it’s a way of sweeping under the table a very real national security risk.” He said the Muslim Brotherhood is intent on replacing the U.S. Constitution with sharia law.

A spokesman for the Council for American-Islamic Relations said Timmerman’s views are detached from reality.

“These bizarre conspiracy theories would be laughable if they didn’t have such a negative impact on American Muslims,” said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for CAIR in Washington, D.C.

Timmerman and others live in their own “bubble of reality” in which a tiny portion of the American Muslim population would have the capability to impose its will on the vast majority of Americans, he said.

Timmerman issued his statement after former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy spoke at the National Press Club in support of Bachmann’s call for an investigation.

As to how his views might play in the religiously and racially diverse 8th District, Timmerman said that was irrelevant.

“I did not make this statement with my finger in the air testing the political winds,” he said. “I made it because it was the right thing to do.”

A spokeswoman for the Van Hollen campaign declined to comment on Timmerman’s claims.

cford@gazette.net