“The president has consulted with his national security team and leaders in the region who share his concern and this designation is working its way through the internal process,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in an email. Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi asked Trump to make the designation during an April 9 visit to Washington, a senior U.S. official said, confirming a report in the New York Times on Tuesday. After the meeting, Trump praised Sisi as a “great president” while a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers raised concerns about Sisi’s human rights record, his efforts to stay in office until 2034 and Egypt’s planned Russian arms purchases. The White House did not say on what basis it might label the group a terrorist organization and former officials questioned whether the group met the legal standard of engaging in “terrorist activity” that threatens U.S. citizens or national security. The Brotherhood, which estimates its membership at up to 1 million people, came to power in Egypt’s first modern free election in 2012, a year after long-serving autocrat and U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was toppled in a popular uprising. As Egypt’s army chief in 2013, Sisi engineered the removal of elected President Mohamed Mursi, a senior Brotherhood figure, and a subsequent crackdown on its supporters as well as liberal opposition in Egypt. Sisi was then elected president in 2014. After Mursi’s overthrow, the Brotherhood was swiftly banned in Egypt. Authorities declared it a terrorist organization and jailed thousands of followers as well as much of its leadership, including Mursi. The Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928, says it is a non-violent movement and denies any relationship to violent insurgencies waged by al Qaeda and Islamic State militants. “We will remain … steadfast in our work in accordance with our moderate and peaceful thinking,” the Brotherhood said in a statement on its website.