Joint Detention Group Deputy Commander Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Hayhurst (center-left) with U.S. Rep. Peter King (center-right) at Guantanamo Bay's Camp Delta in 2009. Photo: wiki commons.

Islamist extremism is a “clear and present danger to homeland security,” U.S. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said Wednesday at the fifth House Homeland Security Committee hearing on radicalization.

King, the committee’s chairman, cited classified information showing a “truly eye-popping amount of ongoing cases” of Islamic radicalization within the U.S. military ranks.

While U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) warned that the hearings would “provide a Congressional stamp of approval for groups that espouse anti-Muslim beliefs,” Zuhdi Jasser—founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy—said that labeling individuals addressing the issue of radical Islam as Islamophobes or bigots “stifles free speech.”

While tracking the hearing, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) Michigan Director Dawud Walid posted on Twitter that there is “no such thing as Islamism.”

“Is there Christianism or Jewishism?” Walid asked.

Federal prosecutors have labeled CAIR as an “unindicted co-conspirator” supporting the terrorist group Hamas.