Trying to thwart the political conference between Sisi and Trump
US President Donald Trump said he strongly supports Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in his first meeting at the White House.
Sisi expressed admiration for Trump's unique character.
US officials said Trump was seeking, during the talks, to "revive" relations between the two countries.
The administration of President Barack Obama has criticized the bloody suppression of the opposition
Trump also wants, according to US officials, to "invest the understanding" he had with the Egyptian president when they met in New York during the US election campaign.
When he was defense minister in July 2013, Sisi led a military operation to isolate elected president Mohamed Morsi after a popular protest against his rule.
The following month, he orchestrated a violent campaign to break up sit-ins in support of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, believed to have killed more than 1,000 people.
Human Rights Watch says tens of thousands have been arrested in crackdowns against dissidents and that the security services have committed gross human rights abuses, including torture, enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions.
Sisi, who was elected in May 2014, has tightened political and civil rights restrictions, retreating from the gains made in the 2011 uprising, after President Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power, according to the US-based human rights group.
Obama has frozen some military aid to Egypt in response to the crackdown in October 2013 and stressed that the freeze would remain until Egypt showed "real progress" towards democracy, but lifted the freeze on military aid in April 2015, Because it is in the US National Security Service.
A senior US official told reporters that human rights issues would be raised at Monday's meeting, but in a "privacy" context, adding that that was the best way to address such issues and to make progress.
"Sisi's invitation to Washington for an official visit, while tens of thousands of Egyptians in prisons are being tortured, is a strange way to build stable strategic relations," said Sarah Morgan, director of Human Rights Watch in Washington.
The two presidents are expected to address a number of regional issues, including efforts to revive the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians and the war on the organization of the Islamic state.
Hundreds of Egyptian security forces have been killed since 2013 in attacks by militant groups strongholds north of the Sinai Peninsula.
Sisi is believed to hope that the United States will lift its $ 1.3 billion military aid to Egypt annually.
The White House promised to keep the level of US support "strong and effective", but recently announced a significant reduction in the budget of international aid.
A US official said Trump was "interested in hearing the Sisi in the Muslim Brotherhood," which the Egyptian president wants from the White House to classify as a terrorist organization.
Brotherhood officials say the group renounces violence.