DHS Sec. Protecting Muslims from McCarthyism his Communist Grandpa Lived Under

The Secretary of Homeland Security is the second high-ranking Obama administration official with a relative investigated for Communism by the U.S. government, Judicial Watch has confirmed. This is relevant because, although Islamic terrorists keep attacking America, the cabinet official responsible for the nation’s safety has vowed to protect Muslims from the type of persecution he says his grandpa suffered under McCarthyism in the 1940s.

During a recent event covered by Judicial Watch, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson compared the discrimination Muslims face in today’s climate of “fear, suspicions and prejudice” to McCarthyism, the movement to weed out Communists during the Cold War. “In 1949, during the McCarthy era, my own grandfather was called upon to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee, to deny he was a member of the Communist Party and defend the patriotism of African Americans,” Johnson said. “Today his grandson is responsible for the homeland security of this entire nation.”

The affair took place at the All Dulles Area Muslim Society (ADAMS), one of the largest mosques in the U.S., located in the D.C. Metro Area. ADAMS leadership got Johnson to hold a “National Security and Civil Rights” press conference in the aftermath of the San Bernardino terrorist attacks. ADAMS officials tried to keep Judicial Watch from attending the event, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reluctantly intervened after multiple appeals by JW. Initially, DHS’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Todd Breasseale, told JW that his agency “does not have the authority to force any private entity to accommodate those whom they do not wish to accommodate,” even though the conference was widely promoted and featured a cabinet secretary. When JW challenged this and restated the journalism credentials of its reporting staff, Breasseale echoed that “DHS hasn’t the authority to force any private entity to accommodate those whom they do not wish to accommodate.” Ultimately, after several appeals, JW was rightfully granted access.

Johnson’s Communist connection had not previously been revealed and it certainly wasn’t mentioned during Senate confirmation hearings before he took over the massive agency created after 9/11 to keep the nation safe. This was a bombshell, according to an editorial published in a Los Angeles-based newspaper dedicated to covering business, finance and economics. “Johnson’s family history is most troubling,” the editorial reads. “As Muslim terrorism hits closer and closer to home, our Homeland Security chief views the war on Islamic terrorism as a another Red scare, where Muslim terrorist suspects are Red-baited like his grandfather. No wonder this administration isn’t interested in monitoring radical Muslims for terrorist connections.”

Earlier this year JW obtained Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) files that reveal the dad, maternal grandpa and father-in-law of President Obama’s trusted senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, were hardcore Communists under investigation by the U.S. government. Jarrett’s dad, pathologist and geneticist Dr. James Bowman, had extensive ties to Communist associations and individuals, his lengthy FBI file shows. In 1950 Bowman was in communication with a paid Soviet agent named Alfred Stern, who fled to Prague after getting charged with espionage. Bowman was also a member of a Communist-sympathizing group called the Association of Internes and Medical Students. After his discharge from the Army Medical Corps in 1955, Bowman moved to Iran to work, the FBI records show.

Jarrett’s father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, was also another big-time Chicago Communist, according to separate FBI files obtained by JW as part of a probe into the Jarrett family’s Communist ties. For a period of time Vernon Jarrett appeared on the FBI’s Security Index and was considered a potential Communist saboteur who was to be arrested in the event of a conflict with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). His FBI file reveals that he was assigned to write propaganda for a Communist Party front group in Chicago that would “disseminate the Communist Party line among…the middle class.”