New Jersey Governor Chris Christie held an Iftar dinner at the Governor’s Mansion in late July. He took the opportunity to declare himself a foursquare tool of jihadists and Islamic supremacists, and even adopted their language in deriding those who have pointed out how he has allowed himself to be compromised by them. Christie complained about a “gaze of intolerance that’s going around our country that is disturbing,” and referred dismissively to concerns that he has gotten too close to Islamic supremacists: “These are the kind of red herrings that people put up who are bigots, who want to judge people based upon their religious beliefs, want to judge people with a broad brush.”

Attending the dinner was the prominent New Jersey Imam Mohammad Qatanani, and Christie was glad to see him, telling him before the audience: “I’m glad to have you here.” Qatanani, he said, was his “friend,” and someone who has “attempted to be a force for good in his community.”

Christie did not mention several salient details about his “friend.” Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield reports that “despite the fact that Mohammed Qatanani was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization that is behind both al-Qaeda and Hamas, despite his own guilty plea to being a member of Hamas, and despite the fact that even in the United States, he had defended a charity that provided funds to children of suicide bombers (this is done as an incentive to reassure terrorists that if they die their families will be taken care of), Qatanani was not deported.”

Christie also referred to another friend of his, Sohail Mohammed, whom he appointed to a Superior Court judgeship in Passaic County. Mohammed was Qaranani’s lawyer when he pled guilty to membership in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Christie has defended Mohammed before, and last year even went out of his way to slam opposition to Sharia in the U.S. as “crap.”

What is actually “crap” is the idea that anyone would consider Chris Christie fit to be President of the United States. “Ignorance is behind the criticism of Sohail Mohammed,” Christie declared, without bothering to explain how “ignorance” provoked Qatanani’s guilty plea, or involvement in Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, or Mohammed’s other ties to Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-linked individuals and groups.

But Christie’s most egregious statements at that time came after a followup question about the spread of Islamic law, Sharia, in the United States. “Sharia law has nothing to do with this at all. It’s crazy!” Christie sputtered. “The guy”—Sohail Mohammed—“is an American citizen!” He declared that “this Sharia law business is just crap … and I’m tried of dealing with the crazies.”

Listening to all that from Christie, you’d get the idea that Sohail Mohammed is being unjustly maligned out of “hatred,” “bigotry” and “Islamophobia”—and that any concern about Sharia in the U.S. is just another manifestation of the same thing. Never mind that courts in 23 states have already used Sharia as a factor in their deliberations, despite its contradictions of American law on the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, equality of rights for women, and more.