Congress and the Muslim Brotherhood

On November 12, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. ET, the Program on Extremism hosted a discussion titled “Congress and the Muslim Brotherhood: Issues, debates and policy perspectives.” The event explored the recent bills introduced by Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart to designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, examining the potential policy, legal, and diplomatic implications of such a move.

The conversation featured Dr. Matthew Levitt, the Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and Director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Alexandra Hughes, attorney at the law firm Rothwell Figg and former national security prosecutor at the Department of Justice. Senior Research Fellow Barry Jonas moderated the discussion.

On November 12, 2025, the Program on Extremism (PoE) at The George Washington University hosted a virtual, high-level panel discussion on recent congressional proposals introduced by Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart to designate the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). The event, moderated by PoE Senior Research Fellow Barry Jonas, featured Dr. Matthew Levitt, Edmund Fitton-Brown, and Alexandra Hughes.

The bipartisan Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist Designation Act of 2025 seeks to amend a decades-old statute that designated the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) as an FTO. The proposed bill would amend the existing statute by adding the MB to the PLO designation, granting the president the power to designate the MB, any branch, chapter, or charity that is owned, operated, or affiliated with the MB, as an FTO. Countries that have designated and outlawed the MB include Austria, Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates.

Alexandra Hughes, former United States national security prosecutor for the Department of Justice, talked about the definition of designation and the legal ramifications of such. An organization can either be designated as an FTO under the Immigration Nationality Act, Section 219, under Department of State jurisdiction, or as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) under Department of the Treasury, by providing support to foreign terrorist organizations. The main distinctions between these two regimes, as Hughes points out, is the “who,” “how,” and “where:” individuals can be designated under the IEEPA regime, the knowledge requirement is higher under IEEPA, and FTO-related prosecutions can extend outside of the United States’s jurisdiction.

In order for an organization to meet the material support threshold, there are three criteria. The organization must be foreign; must engage in terrorist activity, terrorism, or retain the ability to do so; and their activities must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security of the United States. The consequences of such a designation, under the DOS, is criminal prosecution under 18 USC 2339B, which can result in over twenty years of imprisonment if such material support resulted in death. To establish a violation of support, the government must prove that an organization intended to provide support to an FTO whom they knew was designated, or if an organization intended to provide support to a foreign organization that engaged in violence. Material support includes property, money or monetary services, lodging, equipment, weapons, training, transportation, and/or personnel, but excludes medicine or religious materials.

The second regime that Hughes discussed, the SDGT, codified by Executive Order 13224, blocks transactions with people or entities that are involved in terrorism. Consequences of this designation can extend to individuals or groups and result in imprisonment of up to twenty years. In order to establish a violation of IEEPA, the government must establish that a  person acted willingly or knowingly.

Dr. Matthew Levitt, Fromer-Wexler Senior Fellow and Director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, gave a background on the MB. Founded in Egypt in 1928, the MB later expanded into the Middle East and the United States. MB promotes proselytization, or dawa, and some chapters of MB engage in violence, or have military wings. Many organizations engaged in terrorism are already designated, such as the Palestinian branch, Hamas. Dr. Levitt said that the branches are country-driven, and that although some chapters or branches engage in nonviolent, charitable activity, others serve as a conduit to provide funds to FTOs. Dr. Levitt emphasized the importance of designating branches or chapters that are tied to MB and their illicit conduct, rather than trying to designate MB as a whole, since it most likely will not meet the threshold.

Edmund Fitton-Brown, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, expanded on Dr. Levitt’s assessment on decentralized designation, and said that there is no MB global command-and-control, calling MB’s chapters and branches “amorphous.” Fitton-Brown said that the Palestinian issue has become the principal focus of MB and its affiliates in recent years, but that it champions many causes, including the implementation of sharia law. Fitton-Brown cautioned against characterizing nonviolent branches and chapters of MB as “peaceful,” arguing that MB ideology is fundamentally incompatible with democratic principles and that the group’s peaceful posture is  “conditional.”

In closing, Dr. Levitt encouraged individuals donating to charities to conduct due diligence in researching, to avoid unknowingly supporting sham organizations.