Fox News contributor and former GOP congressman Allen West believes he has uncovered a nefarious plot by recently rescued American POW Bowe Bergdahl’s father to claim the White House for Islam.

After President Obama announced on Saturday that Bergdahl had been freed, Bergdahl’s father, standing by Obama’s side in the White House Rose Garden, said his son might be having difficulty understanding English, and, according to the New York Times, “said ‘bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim,’ a common Arabic phrase meaning ‘in the name of God, most gracious, most compassionate,’ and then spoke a few words in Pashto, a language of Afghanistan.

Referring to this event, West — last seen claiming the Obama administration focused its attention on finding missing Nigerian girls to distract from Benghazi — on Monday claimed he had a “bombshell” to report:

Clare Lopez is a former CIA operations officer, a strategic policy and intelligence expert with a focus on Middle East, national defense, WMD, and counterterrorism issues, and a friend of mine.

She emailed me this morning a very poignant analysis that only someone knowing language and Islam could ascertain. She wrote:

“What none of these media is reporting is that the father’s (SGT Bowe Bergdahl’s father Bob) first words at the WH were in Arabic – those words were “bism allah alrahman alraheem” – which means “in the name of Allah the most gracious and most merciful” – these are the opening words of every chapter of the Qur’an except one (the chapter of the sword – the 9th) – by uttering these words on the grounds of the WH, Bergdahl (the father) sanctified the WH and claimed it for Islam. There is no question but POTUS knows this.”

Lopez is a senior fellow at Frank Gaffney’s Center for Security Policy, a DC-based right-wing think tank that’s responsible for promoting all kinds of crazy anti-Muslim claims and conspiracy theories. This is a great example of the pipeline described in the 2011 the Center for American Progress report Fear, Inc: The Islamophobia Network in America: “Experts” like Clare Lopez provide highly questionable analysis to uninformed pundits like Allen West, who then pass this information on to their credulous audiences.

We should note that, if Lopez’s analysis were right, the White House was likely already “claimed” for Islam long ago — in December 1805, at an Iftar dinner hosted by President Thomas Jefferson.

As for West, he thinks he’s stumbled on to something big. “Folks, there is a lot to this whole episode — like Benghazi — that we may never know,” he said. “And this is not conspiracy theory, it is truth based upon Arabic and Islamic dogma and tradition.”