On Sunday, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called for an FBI probe into protesters urging a cease-fire in the war between Israel and Hamas, claiming without evidence that some demonstrations are being influenced or possibly funded by Russia. The California Democrat said she wants the FBI to investigate finances behind the nationwide protests.

The United States’ largest Muslim civil rights organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, called the comment a “smear” and “downright authoritarian,” comparing it to FBI investigations into antiwar activists during the Vietnam War era.

“I think some of these protesters are spontaneous and organic and sincere. Some, I think, are connected to Russia and I say that having looked at this for a long time,” Pelosi said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I think some financing should be investigated. And I want to ask the FBI to investigate them.”

The longtime Democratic leader described calls for a cease-fire as “Mr. Putin’s message,” referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The call for a federal investigation into the protests comes as thousands of Americans take to the streets each week to call for an end of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that has left over 26,000 Palestinians dead according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry — which international bodies like the United Nations largely trust to provide accurate data. Most Gazans have had to flee their homes and half of the 2.2 million Gazans are at risk of starving, according to the United Nations.

“We are deeply disturbed by Former House Speaker Pelosi’s comments,” said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in a statement. “Rep. Pelosi’s claim that some of the Americans protesting for a Gaza ceasefire are working with Vladmir Putin sounds delusional and her call for the FBI to investigate those protesters without any evidence is downright authoritarian.”

“Instead of baselessly smearing those Americans as Russian collaborators, former House Speaker Pelosi and other political leaders should respect the will of the American people by calling for an end to the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza,” Awad added.

Awad cited a poll from YouGov/The Economist from last week that shows around half of President Joe Biden’s 2020 supporters believe Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinian civilians. A December Morning Consult poll found 59% of all voters supported a cease-fire in the war, including 68% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans and independents.

Protestors have frequently disrupted Biden’s events across the country in recent weeks in opposition to his position on the war, as they have with elected officials throughout government.

“Hundreds of thousands of Americans, including many young people, progressive activists, and Jewish, Muslim, Palestinian, and Black Americans, have been protesting to call for a ceasefire in Gaza,” Awad continued. “Her comments once again show the negative impact of decades of dehumanization of the Palestinian people by those supporting Israeli apartheid.”

In a statement sent out after the interview, a spokesperson for Pelosi attempted to caveat her remarks on CNN, but did not provide any more detail to back her claims other than citing a pair of supportive social media posts from Columbia University political scientist Ian Bremmer and two-time Massachusetts congressional candidate Brianna Wu.

“As Speaker Pelosi said on CNN, we have to focus on stopping the suffering in Gaza, and she will continue demanding that all hostages be freed now. Speaker Pelosi has always supported and defended the right of all Americans to make their views known through peaceful protest,” the spokesperson wrote. “Informed by three decades on the House Intelligence Committee, Speaker Pelosi is acutely aware of how foreign adversaries meddle in American politics to sow division and impact our elections, and she wants to see further investigation ahead of the 2024 election.”

U.S. intelligence agencies have charged that Russia has meddled in American politics, most notably in recent years blitzing social media platforms with disinformation and stoking divisions during the 2016 presidential election. Putin’s government has been critical of Israel since the war started as Russia forges closer ties to Iran. But Pelosi did not publicly provide evidence of her claims on Sunday.

Elsewhere on Sunday, progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., explained why she believes many Americans are opposing Israel’s siege of Gaza. In an interview on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” she declined to go as far as Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan — Congress’s only Palestinian-American and a far-left ally of Ocasio-Cortez’s — who accused Biden of supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people during the early weeks of the war. But Ocasio-Cortez argued the solidarity many Americans were feeling with Palestinians was easily explained.

“I think what we are seeing right now throughout the country is that young people are appalled at the violence and the indiscriminate loss of life,” she said. “We are not just seeing 25,000 people that have died in Gaza. We are seeing the starvation of millions of people, the displacement of over two million Gazans.”

On Sunday, Ocasio-Cortez warned the Democratic coalition could be fractured by disagreements over the war, but Pelosi seemed unconcerned in her CNN appearance.

“Young people care about the right to choose," Pelosi said. "They care about LGBTQ issues. They care about preserving the planet. They care about gun violence prevention.”

“So they're going to have to make the decision, staying home to enable, or to organize and get out there and get the job done,” she added.