|
 Announcing the team in a statement, Cruz said he would reverse
what he described as the weakening of the United States in a
dangerous world, singling out militant Islamist groups in the Middle
East and North Africa as his focus.
Among the most recognizable names on the senator's list of 23
advisers was Elliott Abrams, who served in the administrations of
both Reagan and President George W. Bush and is a senior fellow at
the Council on Foreign Relations.
But the list of advisers drew more attention for its inclusion of
several critics of Muslims. Among those were Frank Gaffney, a former
official in the Reagan administration, and at least two other
members of a think tank Gaffney founded, the Center for Security
Policy.
The center's reports argue that hundreds of thousands of American
Muslims support Islamist violence in the United States and that
there is a conspiracy to erode the U.S. legal system by elevating
sharia, the Islamic legal code.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that
monitors U.S. extremist groups, has labeled the Center for Security
Policy a "hate group" and Gaffney a "notorious Islamophobe."
 Gaffney did not respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman
pointed to online essays where Gaffney has rejected such criticism,
saying his group is a defender of civil liberties against "Islamic
supremacists."
"Do you mention any of the other 22 members of the advisory
coalition?" Brian Phillips, a Cruz spokesman, said in an email,
declining to respond to questions about the criticisms made against
Gaffney and his think tank.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim rights
group, urged Cruz, a Christian, to reconsider having Gaffney and
others who have made anti-Muslim remarks as his advisers, saying it
suggested the candidate entertained "anti-Muslim bigotry".
Besides Gaffney and his think-tank colleagues, CAIR said Cruz should
drop William Boykin, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant general who has
said the government should be allowed to ignore the U.S.
Constitution to pass laws limiting Muslims' right to freedom of
speech and religion.
Some of Cruz's other advisers have been critical of anti-Islamic
rhetoric, including Abrams and Mary Habeck, another former Bush
adviser; both have said Islam should not be demonized.
Another adviser is Katherine Gorka, president of the Council on
Global Security, a group that produces research on Islamist
violence, who said in an email that Cruz "understands the vital role
that America's military strength plays across the globe but without
wanting to engage the U.S. in expensive democracy-building
adventures."
[to top of second column] |
TRUMP-CRUZ SHOWDOWN
Trump, a 69-year-old billionaire businessman from New York, has
surged to the front of the once-crowded Republican field, drawing
support from voters by proposing to temporarily ban Muslims from
entering the United States for fear they might secretly be members
of violent Islamist groups. Trump cited research by Gaffney's group
in announcing the plan last year.
Cruz, a 45-year-old Texan, is seeking to keep Trump from winning an
outright majority of delegates as states vote for party nominees in
the coming months, and to wrest the nomination from him at the
party's national convention in Cleveland in July.
Conservatives who think Trump strays too far from Republican
ideology continued to plot openly to thwart him at or before the
convention.
Erick Erickson, a conservative blogger, said in a statement that he
joined a meeting of "grassroots conservative activists" from around
the country in Washington on Thursday. He said they made plans to
appoint an as-yet-unnamed candidate at what they hope will be the
first contested Republican convention since 1948, where a
complicated system of ballot rules would come into effect.
Earlier this month, Mitt Romney, the party's unsuccessful 2012
presidential candidate, called on Republicans to use tactical voting
to slow Trump. The call appeared to have been ignored by many
Republican voters, with Trump remaining the leading candidate
following the most recent round of primary elections on Tuesday.
Cruz has said "everyone understands" the proposed Muslim ban by
Trump, also a Christian, but the senator does not support it, saying
there are millions of Muslims who are not murderous. Instead, Cruz
supports stopping refugees from some predominantly Muslim countries
from coming to the United States.
Democratic politicians and others have condemned Republican
candidates' remarks on Islam, saying they foster further division
and discrimination.
(Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball, Jonathan Landay Emily
Stephenson and Phil Stewart in Washington and Chris Kahn in New
York; Editing by Howard Goller and Jonathan Oatis)
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