Don Lemon Is Wrong About CAIR

CNN Host Don Lemon attempted to invoke the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) as part of his televised ambush of former Reagan official and head of Center for Security Policy Frank Gaffney last night. Lemon played a clip of Nihad Awad, CAIR's Executive Director, before asking why Gaffney opposed CAIR. When Gaffney attempted to explain that CAIR was a Muslim Brotherhood organization with ties to Hamas, Lemon flatly denied it saying, "There is no direct knowledge that we had that CAIR has anything to do with the Muslim brotherhood."

It should be understood from the outset that CAIR's ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and to Hamas, are absolutely indisputable. Anyone who baldly asserts to the contrary, as Lemon does, is either totally ignorant of the available facts or is lying.

CAIR was founded in 1994 by three men, Nihad Awad, Omar Ahmad, and Rafiq Jaber. All three men were leading members of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). IAP is described in documents recovered by the FBI and submitted into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation Trial as an organization of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States.

A 1991 Memorandum entitled, "A Suggestion to Amend the bylaws of the Central Committee," and submitted at trial as described IAP as the "official organization" representing the "popular side" of the Palestine Committee's efforts. Remarks listed at the bottom of the page openly describe collecting donations for the "Islamic Resistance Movement" (AKA Hamas) "from the Ikhwan and others." Ikhwan is Arabic for brothers and used to refer to Brotherhood members.

IAP is also connected directly to the Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestine Committee, and Hamas in the 1992 "Islamic Action for Palestine" memo, introduced into evidence as "Elbarasse Search 5. That memo describes the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestine Committee as supporting jihad in Palestine, and in particular Hamas, with "media, money, men and all that."

Deported Hamas operative, and now Deputy Chairman of Hamas' Political Bureau Mousa Abu Marzook was IAP Chairman, and the FBI submitted evidence at trial showing that Marzook had supplied IAP with tens of thousands of dollars.

The U.S Government's Trial brief for the Holy Land Foundation succinctly described IAP as a "media and propaganda organization" of the Palestine Committee.

CAIR Founder Omar Ahmad, and Nihad Awad both appear in the "Palestine Section" Phone Directory introduced into evidence as "Ashqar Search 1." Ahmad's name appears under the name Omar Yahya, an alias Ahmad admitted to using.

In 1993, members of the Palestine Committee and its affiliated organizations held a meeting in Philadelphia that was placed under surveillance by the FBI. The FBI recorded open statements about Hamas, including under the code phrase "Sister Samah." Hamas spelled backwards, as testified to by FBI Agent Lara Burns.

Burns would also testify that CAIR was formed in the aftermath of the Philadelphia meeting.

Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad were both present at the 1993 meeting according to the FBI. Omar Ahmad spoke at the meeting (recorded and entered into evidence as Philly Meeting 15E) about working in the media, and said the problem was that the committee had "stopped working underground," and that deception was needed, "the media person among us will recognize that you send two messages; one to the Americans and one to the Muslims."

Following CAIR's creation, the organization's name appeared on a handwritten document titled, "Meeting Agenda for the Palestine Committee 7/30/94" seized in a search by the FBI and submitted at trial as Elbarasse Search-19.

Looking at the sum total of all of the submitted evidence during the Holy Land Foundation Trial, Federal Judge Jorge Solis declared that,"The government has produced ample evidence to establish connections" between CAIR, IAP and the terrorist organization Hamas.

Shortly after CAIR's founding in 1994, Nihad Awad, CAIR's executive director, was videotaped publicly declaring support for Hamas.

Sabri Benkahla, the government's brief responded by noting, "…from its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists."

The Federal Bureau of Investigation responded to a request for information from then Senator John Kyl and other lawmakers about CAIR by saying that it had cut off contact with CAIR's National Headquarters because "evidence was introduced that demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus [Omar Ahmad] and its Executive Director [Nihad Awad]) and the Palestine Committee."

The evidence of CAIR's participation in a conspiracy to support Hamas through its role as a member of the Palestine Committee of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood is unassailable. The evidence that the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood exists as a real and knowable network of individuals and organizations is likewise unassailable.

The future must not belong to those who deny the true nature of Islam

John Quincy Adams on Islam

In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.

Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus (Blunt, 1830, 29:269, capitals in orig.).

April 15, 2011

The Honorable Eric H. Holder, Jr.
Attorney General
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington D.C. 20530-0001

Re: United States v. Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, et al., 3:04-CR-0240-G.

Dear Attorney General Holder:

I write to inquire about your decision not to prosecute the 246 individuals and organizations, named as unindicted co-conspirators in a Hamas terror finance case, United States v. Holy Land Foundation.

I have been reliably informed that the decision not to seek indictments of the Council on American Islamic Relations (“CAIR”) and its co-founder Omar Ahmad, the Islamic Society of North America (“ISNA”), and the North American Islamic Trust (“NAIT”), was usurped by high-ranking officials at Department of Justice headquarters over the vehement and stated objections of special agents and supervisors of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as the prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas, who had investigated and successfully prosecuted the Holy Land Foundation case. Their opposition to this decision raises serious doubt that the decision not to prosecute was a valid exercise of prosecutorial discretion.

I request that you provide answers to the following questions:

What are the reasons for the Department’s decisions not to prosecute CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad, who is a CAIR co-founder and former head of the Palestine Committee of the Muslim Brotherhood in the United States?

Who made the final decision not to prosecute? Who, if anyone, from the Executive Office of the President, consulted with, advised, or otherwise communicated with the Department of Justice, in electronic, oral or written form, regarding the Department’s decision to not seek indictments of CAIR, ISNA, NAIT and Mr. Ahmad?

How does and will the Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation address the potential for CAIR, ISNA, or NAIT to engage in terrorism financing? What policies with regard to those organizations have you implemented to address that threat?

The answers to these questions should provide some explanation for declining a prosecution that is strongly supported by the record from the Holy Land Foundation trial. As you are aware, in a previously sealed Memorandum Opinion Order of July 1, 2009, United States District Judge Jorge A. Solis declined CAIR, ISNA and NAIT’s August 14, 2007 and June 18, 2008 requests to strike their names from the United States Attorney’s list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation case. Judge Solis found that the “Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with [the Holy Land Foundation, “HLF”], the Islamic Association for Palestine (“IAP”), and with Hamas.” The Court found that the evidence was “sufficient to show the association of these entities with HLF, IAP, and Hamas. Thus, maintaining the names of the entities on the List is appropriate in light of the evidence proffered by the Government” (citation omitted). At minimum, FBI testimony established that Mr. Ahmad attended a meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in which participants discussed how they could support Hamas, including by raising funds for this terrorist group. NAIT was similarly unsuccessful in its subsequent request to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit to have its name removed from the list of co-conspirators.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the Department of State since October 9, 1997, and its status was reconfirmed by the most recent annual report of the National Counterterrorism Center, issued April 30, 2010 Hamas shamefully conducts cowardly suicide bombings against civilian targets inside Israel. Hamas also, between 2008 and 2009, conducted 2,614 indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks upon residential areas in that country, an ally of the United States. According to the State Department, Hamas finances its terrorist activities “through state sponsors of terrorism Iran and Syria, and fundraising networks in the Arabian Peninsula, Europe, the Middle East, [and] the United States” (emphasis added). It raises the most serious question for the Justice Department to decline to even attempt to prosecute individuals and organizations, accused by a US Attorney and found by a federal judge, to have a nexus with fundraising for an organization which conducts terror attacks upon civilians.

I believe that in order to maintain the credibility of the Department, there should be full transparency into the Department’s decision. Please respond to this letter by April 25, 2011. If you have any questions regarding this letter, please contact Kevin Carroll at (202)226-8417.

Sincerely,

PETER T. KING
Chairman

cc: The Honorable Robert S. Mueller III

https://homeland.house.gov/press/king-demands-answers-holder-decision-not-prosecute-cair-its-co-founder-and-other/

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