Democratic National Committee Chair hopeful Keith Ellison is now the subject of an Ethics Committee investigation after it was discovered that an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood paid for him to travel to Mecca. Via the Washington Free Beacon:

Ellison has associated with the Muslim American Society, a Virginia-based group founded by Muslim Brotherhood members in 1993 to act as the “overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States,” according to federal prosecutors in 2007. The United Arab Emirates recently added the group to a list of terrorist organizations.

In 2008, the society paid for Ellison, a practicing Muslim, to make a 16-day pilgrimage, known as the hajj, to Mecca. He was joined on the trip by Asad Zaman, who sits on the board of the Muslim American Society’s Minnesota chapter. Zaman has contributed thousands of dollars to Ellison’s congressional runs, both before and after the Mecca trip.

Eight months after Ellison returned from the trip, the House Ethics Committee questioned why he did not disclose the amount of money that the Muslim American Society paid for him to take the trip, which qualifies as a gift to a public official.

Critics of Ellison have been very concerned with the fact that he has close ties with radical groups. As the Free Beacon’s story goes on to explain, the Muslim Brotherhood’s affiliation with the group that paid for the trip were already known, so it’s not like this was a surprise.

Following the committee’s investigation, Ellison was told that he had to disclose that his trip cost the Muslim American Society $13,350.

Ellison had initially said that he might have “meetings of an official nature” during his trip to Saudi Arabia, but told investigators that he “instead undertook only the more personal itinerary scheduled by the Muslim American Society,” which he believed allowed him to keep the trip’s cost private.

At the time, Ellison said he was “not privy to the internal workings” of the Muslim American Society, but the trip took place years after it was revealed that the organization was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Let’s be clear here: The only reason the Democrats want Ellison to be their DNC chair is for the appearance of diversity. A black Muslim leading their party’s official operations would look soooo much better than whatever the RNC puts up once Reince Priebus is officially gone from the job. If Ellison doesn’t get the DNC chair job, it’s going to be because someone found out that his ties go way beyond what even the Democrats feel is acceptable.

Granted, the Democrats don’t feel a whole lot of shame and seem to be completely against the idea of looking inward to find out what their faults are. Maybe if they recognized it’s no longer about identity politics, they’d have more electoral success.

God forbid.