Rep. Wolf in 2009: Obama admin has ‘rushed to embrace Mubarak’

In a floor speech on July 9, 2009, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) accused the Obama administration of “rushing to embrace Egypt's 81-year-old strongman,” President Hosni Mubarak.

“Mr. Gates, like Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton before him, heaped praise on Mr. Mubarak while making clear that the new administration will not trouble him about his systematic and often violent repression of the country's liberal politicians, bloggers and human rights activists,” said Wolf in another floor speech on May 11, 2009.

Other members of Congress have also called for a change in U.S. foreign policy that has bolstered the Mubarak regime to the tune of billions of dollars over the last 30 years.  

“For too long, the U.S. has stood against the people of Egypt seeking a more democratic country and a more democratic government,” Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.) said Jan. 26.

But some members of Congress have offered tepid appreciation for the Egyptian government in floor speeches and, ironically, even reached out to him for assistance on human rights issues. 

In a report on an official trip to Israel in 2009, for example, then-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.) said he had written Mubarak to ask for assistance in winning freedom for captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from his Hamas captors.

And in a floor speech on Jan. 26, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) “commended” the Egyptian government’s for its swift arrest and ongoing prosecution of four suspects in an act of violence against Coptic Egyptian Christians.