Rep. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.), a candidate to be the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, made remarks in 2007 comparing the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to the Reichstag fire that helped bring Adolf Hitler to power in Nazi Germany.
In the video clipped by America Rising, Ellison said that the 9/11 attacks led to greater discrimination against religious minorities in the U.S. The Reichstag fire was a 1933 arson attack on the German Parliament that is viewed as a key event in the rise of Hitler.
"Remember 9/11. Right? You had never have [sic] all this discrimination against religious minorities but for 9/11," Ellison said. "You had it, but you didn't have it to the degree that we have it now. 9/11 is this juggernaut event in American history, and it allows—it's almost like, you know, the Reichstag fire kind of reminds me of that. Does anybody know what I'm talking about?"
"But who benefited from 9/11?" an audience member asked.
"Well, I mean, you know, you and I both know," Ellison said.
"Yeah, Bush," the audience member replied, a clear reference to then-President George W. Bush.
"But the thing is that, you know, after the Reichstag was burned, they blamed the Communists for it, and it put the leader of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted," Ellison said.
Ellison effectively compared Bush to Hitler with the analogy, drawing comparisons between presidential authorities he was granted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and Hitler's ruthless crackdown and consolidation of power in the fire's aftermath.
Also, various sects of fringe 9/11 "truthers" have surmised Bush was behind the 9/11 attacks. Some historians believe the Reichstag fire was a "false flag" operation performed by the Nazis to help Hitler.