Senator Ted Cruz gaveled in a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on alleged Muslim Brotherhood influence in America on August 5, 2026 — and ended up the only lawmaker in the room. Every Democrat on the panel boycotted the session, but no other Republican senator showed up either, leaving the Texas Republican to question witnesses entirely on his own.
The hearing, held by the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, focused on what Cruz described as Muslim Brotherhood influence in public schools, universities and government. As reported by the San Antonio Current, Cruz publicly criticized Senate Democrats for failing to attend, calling their absence an embarrassment and a disservice to victims of the Muslim Brotherhood, and saying the minority should explain why no member attended a hearing on terrorism. Yet the same report notes that not a single other Republican on the subcommittee joined him either, meaning Cruz acted entirely alone on the dais.
All five Democratic members of the subcommittee — Senators Sheldon Whitehouse, Richard Blumenthal, Mazie Hirono, Alex Padilla, and Peter Welch — had announced two days earlier that they would boycott the proceeding. In a joint statement from the Senate Judiciary Courts Subcommittee, the Democrats called the hearing a political creepshow designed to scapegoat Muslim Americans.
A Hearing Timed to a Michigan Primary Upset
The hearing landed less than 24 hours after Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a progressive Michigan physician and former public health official, won the state's Democratic U.S. Senate primary. Per the San Antonio Current's account of the hearing, Cruz claimed El-Sayed's primary victory was part of a Muslim Brotherhood plot to control the United States. El-Sayed would become the first Muslim senator in the country if elected, and right-wing groups have tried for years to link him to the Muslim Brotherhood.
According to NOTUS, the timing coincided with attack campaigns from the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Leadership Fund linking El-Sayed to extreme groups. NOTUS also reported that Cruz struggled through Arabic names while trying to argue that the Muslim Brotherhood is widespread in America. Hoodline has previously covered the Michigan race, including a shock endorsement boost for El-Sayed and scrutiny over his campaign's finances and credentials.
Witnesses Revived a 2008 Terror-Financing Case
Three witnesses testified before Cruz: retired FBI special agent Lara Burns, National Jewish Advocacy Center senior litigation counsel Arielle F. Klepach, and Center for Security Policy analyst Kyle Shideler, according to Jewish Insider. Burns argued that evidence from the 2008 Holy Land Foundation prosecution established that the Council on American-Islamic Relations was created to protect Hamas support networks, and testified that the organization still warrants federal investigation, the outlet reported.
That 2008 Texas trial resulted in 108 convictions against five charity officials for sending material support to Hamas, and federal prosecutors at the time named CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America, and the North American Islamic Trust as unindicted co-conspirators — details Jewish Insider's coverage traces back to that case. Cruz and his witnesses framed the August hearing as a necessary investigation into decades-old influence networks rooted in that landmark prosecution.
Klepach's written testimony also singled out The Meadow, formerly known as EPIC City, a planned Muslim residential community in East Plano, Texas, citing it as an example of alleged Islamist separatism, according to WBAP. The development has already faced state regulatory scrutiny, including a lawsuit Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed against the East Plano Islamic Center over an alleged illegal land development scheme.
Federal Designations and a Texas Political Strategy
The hearing followed federal action earlier in the year: in January 2026, the government officially designated the Egyptian and Jordanian branches of the Muslim Brotherhood as terrorist organizations and classified its Lebanese chapter as a foreign terrorist organization, according to The National News. A White House strategy document in May 2026 identified the group as a counterterrorism focus.
The subcommittee Democrats' statement also pointed to the political climate driving the hearing's timing, noting that Texas Republican campaign strategists this year have explicitly embraced anti-Islamic rhetoric to mobilize primary voters. Plano-based strategist Vinny Minchillo was cited as calling opposition to Islamic law solid gold for that purpose.
CAIR Cites Record Discrimination Complaints
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights group, criticized Cruz's hearing as an attempt to generate hostility toward U.S. Muslims for political gain. CAIR's national communications director, Robert S. McCaw, said American Muslims should be represented as constituents rather than exploited, and called the hearing irresponsible and dangerous amid record-high reports of anti-Muslim discrimination and hate incidents.
Those record numbers come from CAIR's own annual civil rights report, published in March 2026, which documented 8,683 anti-Muslim discrimination complaints across the U.S. in 2025 — the highest single-year total since the organization began tracking such data in 1996, per CAIR California.
A Hearing Once Postponed by Violence
Cruz's hearing was originally scheduled for May 20, 2026, but was postponed after an anti-Muslim gunman opened fire outside the Islamic Center of San Antonio, killing a security guard and two other people. Police are investigating that attack as a hate crime. Hoodline previously reported on the shooting in coverage of gunfire at the mosque, part of a broader pattern of hate incidents targeting American mosques this year, including an earlier arson scare at a South Los Angeles mosque before Ramadan.
.jpg){kind=link}