Former U.S. officials criticize ad by state attorney general candidate

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Former high-ranking U.S. officials are criticizing an attack ad accusing Republican Missouri attorney general candidate Josh Hawley of working for terrorists.

In statements released Monday from Hawley's campaign, a former U.S. attorney general and former assistant U.S. attorney general slammed the ads by fellow GOP candidate Sen. Kurt Schaefer as misleading.

At issue is an ad launched last week by Schaefer's campaign that cites Hawley's work for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in representing the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq in its efforts to get off the U.S. list of terrorist organizations.

The group carried out a series of bombings and assassinations against Iran's clerical regime in the 1980s and fought alongside Saddam's forces in the Iran-Iraq war but renounced violence in 2001. It was removed from the terrorist list in 2012.

Backers of the group include a list of prominent former American officials, including former directors of the CIA and FBI. Several have come out in opposition to Schaefer's ad, including former U.S. attorney general Michael Mukasey, who called the ad "grossly inaccurate" and said the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq provided information about Iran's nuclear program. Mukasey served from 2007 to 2009.

Josh Hawley

"Senator Schaefer's shameful ad displays a profound lack of understanding of American national security, and a total disregard for the truth," wrote John Bolton, a former United Nations ambassador and an assistant U.S. attorney general from 1988 to 1989, in another statement released by Hawley's campaign. "These are the sorts of falsehoods that disqualify those who tell them from holding public office."

But Schaefer's campaign manager Scott Diekhaus compared the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq's renouncement of violence to the Islamic State group "a few years down the road, saying that they no longer wished to be violent."

"It's only in Washington, D.C., that the killing of American citizens and soldiers seems to have a statute of limitations," Diekhaus said.

Schaefer and Hawley, who is on leave from working as an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, are competing in one of the state's most hotly contested races. They'll face off in an Aug. 2 primary for the Republican nomination.

The Democratic candidates for attorney general are former Cass County prosecutor Teresa Hensley and St. Louis Assessor Jake Zimmerman. Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster is running for governor.

Schaefer's recent ad is not the first from his campaign seeking to tie Hawley to terrorism.

An earlier attack ad from Schaefer claimed Hawley worked for "the terrorist known as the American Taliban." That references Muslim prison inmate Gregory Holt, who was represented by the Becket Fund in a case that went to the U.S. Supreme Court over whether he had a right to grow a beard for religious reasons.

The Becket Fund has said Hawley didn't work on the case, and his name mistakenly appeared on a brief because of a clerical error.

That ad also drew criticism, including from former U.S. Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, who called it "politics at its worst and most dishonest."

When asked about the tone of the ads, Diekhaus said Schaefer is focused on "talking about the records of both of the candidates in the race."