A photograph of then-Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan that was taken in 2005 at a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington, DC, was released Saturday after a 13-year cover-up to protect Obama’s political career.
Journalist Askia Muhammad told TriceEdneyWire.com that he took the photograph after Obama had engaged “in a warm conversation with constituent and fellow Chicagoan Minister Louis Farrakhan.” However, he realized that the photograph could endanger Obama’s presidential ambitions, which were already being widely discussed.
Farrakhan is a black supremacist and antisemite who also holds anti-gay views. Rumors of an association between Obama and Farrakhan circulated during the 2008 presidential campaign in the wake of revelations about Obama’s decades-long membership in the Trinity United Church of Christ, led by the racist preacher Jeremiah Wright.
Those rumors could not be substantiated, however — and the story of Muhammad’s long-hidden photograph explains why.
Asia told TraceEdneyWire.com that he was confronted by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus about the photograph, and that he eventually surrendered it to Farrakhan’s chief of staff. He secretly kept a copy of the image for himself, but he never told anyone and never released the image, for fear of burglary or retaliation against him, he told the left-wing Talking Points Memo website.
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