By ALICIA A. CALDWELL
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says an Egyptian politician given a visa to visit the United States last month was vetted three times and not deemed a security threat.

Napolitano told the House Homeland Security Committee Wednesday that Hani Nour Eldin, a self-professed member of a banned Egyptian militant group, was cleared by the State Department before being granted a visa. She says he was vetted by the Homeland Security Department before being allowed into the country, and scrutinized a third time by the Secret Service before he was granted access to the White House.

The committee chairman, Rep. Peter King, a New York Republican, says he worries that giving a visa to a member of a State Department-designated "foreign terrorist organization" without telling Congress violated federal law.

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