Tim Donnelly Links Neel Kashkari to Shariah

Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Donnelly is associating rival candidate Neel Kashkari with shariah. 

On Donnelly’s Facebook page, a post reads:

BREAKING: Neel Kashkari supported the United States submitting to the Islamic, Shariah banking code in 2008 when he ran TARP. Shariah is “the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.” This revelation is spreading fast, as people like Anita Gunn refer to Mr. Kashkari’s support of Shariah an “October Surprise.”

The post linked to a tweet by Anita Gunn, a conservative columnist, which then linked to a 2008 piece by Frank Gaffney that was published by the Washington Times.

Gaffney asserted that the Treasury Department’s study of whether Islamic banking could be beneficial in solving the world’s financial crisis was a way for Shariah law to gain power in America. Kashkari was heading the Treasury’s Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) at the time. Gaffney wrote:

Thanks to the extraordinary authority conferred on Treasury since September, backed by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the department is now in a position to impose its embrace of Shariah on the U.S. financial sector. The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury’s purchase of – at last count – 17 banks and the ability to provide, or withhold, funds from its new slush-fund can translate into unprecedented coercive power. Concerns in this regard are only heightened by the prominent role Assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari will be playing in “Islamic Finance 101.” Mr. Kashkari, the official charged with administering the TARP fund, will provide welcoming remarks to participants. Presumably, in the process, he will convey the enthusiasm about Shariah-Compliant Finance that appears to be the current party line at Treasury.

Donnelly doubled down on his Facebook post when he spoke with the Los Angeles Times, saying, “Given the recent stories and protests about the outrage of the discriminatory nature of Shariah law, we’re horrified that Kashkari would support Shariah anything.”