Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, on at least five occasions as governor of Minnesota, hosted a Muslim cleric who celebrated Hamas's Oct. 7 attack last year on Israel and promoted a film popular among Neo-Nazis that glorifies Adolf Hitler, the Washington Examiner found.

The imam, Asad Zaman of the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, joined other Muslim leaders in May 2023 for a meeting about mosque security with Walz's gubernatorial office in Minnesota. Zaman also spoke at a May 2020 event to call for peaceful protests with the governor during the riots in Minnesota sparked after George Floyd's death. In April 2019, the cleric delivered an invocation before Walz's state address -- just months after Zaman called for an end to a government shutdown at a press conference with Walz in January 2019.

Zaman, moreover, attended a May 2019 event that Walz hosted for Ramadan, social media posts show.

Walz's ties to Zaman could serve as problematic baggage for the Minnesota governor as he campaigns with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee. News of the ties also comes after a Washington Free Beacon report this week found Walz spoke at a 2019 event with an antisemitic scholar who has defended terrorism against Israel.

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In recent years, Zaman has also appeared to equate Hamas committing terrorism to Israel defending itself. State records reviewed by the Washington Examiner show Walz's administration has awarded over $100,000 in funding to MAS Minnesota.

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The Muslim American Society was once described by federal prosecutors as being founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States, court records show. The MAS, which the United Arab Emirates designated as a terrorist group in 2014, came under fire in 2019 after a video surfaced online of children at an event held by its Philadelphia chapter calling for the murder of Jews.

We will chop off their heads, and we will liberate the sorrowful and exalted Al-Aqsa Mosque, two young girls said at the event, according to the Times of Israel.

Walz's office and Minnesota's Muslim American Society did not reply to requests for comment.