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Sunday, January 19, 2020

DHS APPROVES $100,000 GRANT OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY TO HAMAS-LINKED "CAIR"~120+MEMBERS OF CONGRESS ISSUE LETTERS OF SUPPORT TO CAIR

DHS APPROVES $100,000 GRANT OF TAXPAYERS' MONEY TO HAMAS-LINKED "CAIR" 
BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:
This is the way the world is today: speaking honestly about the ideological roots of jihad terror will get you defamed and vilified, classified as a “hate group leader,” defamed, shunned, canceled everywhere. But have multiple links to a jihad terror group and you’re in, you’ll be the go-to group for the establishment media and get taxpayer money to further your goals. CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements about how Islamic law should be imposed in the U.S. (Ahmad denies this, but the original reporter stands by her story.) CAIR chapters frequently distribute pamphlets telling Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has been proposed or implemented and has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates. CAIR’s Hussam Ayloush in 2017 called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. CAIR’s national outreach manager is an open supporter of Hamas.
“WESTROP: DHS Approves $100K Grant Of Taxpayers’ Money To CAIR,” by Sam Westrop, DailyWire.com, January 17, 2020:
In October, the Trump administration handed out $100,000 of taxpayer dollars to the terror-tied Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Middle East Forum has found.
In 2009, the FBI blacklisted CAIR after federal prosecutors named the Islamist group as an unindicted co-conspirator during the 2008 Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial. In 2014, the United Arab Emirates designated CAIR as a terrorist organization. And today, its officials continue to promote and excuse violently anti-American and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
To fund CAIR, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) first awarded monies to the Washington, D.C. government, which then selected CAIR and a number of other extremist organizations as suitable sub-recipients. The federal government would likely have been aware, however, that CAIR was a grantee — according to government documentation, it seems sub-grantees must be approved by DHS before funds are distributed.
The administration’s funding of CAIR was the product of the DHS’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program. As my colleague David Swindle recently wrote in The Daily Wire, Congress’ current proposed expansion of the program’s budget, however “well-meaning,” carries enormous “potential for abuse” and will end up providing “millions of taxpayer dollars” to “pro-jihadist Islamist groups.”
This program and others seem to be doing just that. Additional new federal grants of taxpayers’ money handed out to Islamist organizations include over $57,000 to the Muslim American Society (MAS), a national Islamist organization whose Philadelphia branch hosted an event last year at which young children from an MAS-run school recited poetry about the killing of Jews; and $100,000 to Dar al-Hijrah, a hardline Virginia mosque once home to former al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki, and long considered a key terror hub by law enforcement agencies.
The Middle East Forum has written before about the enormous amount of taxpayers’ money being handed out to dangerous Islamist organizations. In 2019, we discovered that over $41 million of federal grants has been given to radical groups since 2007. This total does not include the dozens of more recent awards made in the last few months.
Surprisingly, under the Trump administration, grants to extremist organizations have actually increased. As we noted last year, “between 2017 and 2018, the amount of taxpayers’ money given to organizations either influenced or controlled by Islamist activists more than tripled from $4 million to $13.5 million. Under the Obama administration, the amount given to Islamist-linked organizations averaged a mere $1.7 million each year.”
In August 2019, the U.S. Census Bureau quickly cancelled a proposed partnership with CAIR after a number of conservative media outlets started investigating the decision. But why this was not enough to stop the federal government from subsequently funding the very group it had previously conceded was beyond the pale?…
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SEE ALSO: 
https://www.investigativeproject.org/8266/government-continues-
turning-a-blind-eye-to
AND:
https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/01/us-government-hands-out-tens-
of-millions-to-muslim-orgs-linked-to-hamas-and-muslim-brotherhood
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More than 120 members of Congress issue letters of support to Hamas-linked CAIR

BY ROBERT SPENCER
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research 
purposes:
This is the normalization and mainstreaming of evil. Would any of these politicians send a letter of support to a Nazi group? Of course not. Would they send a letter of congratulations to a group that opposed jihad terror? Not on your life. But in a sign of how topsy-turvy the Left’s moral compass has become, none of them hesitated to extend good wishes and gratitude to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). In light of what CAIR stands for and its appalling track record, how is that different from sending a fawning letter to a Nazi group?
CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR officials have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements about how Islamic law should be imposed in the U.S. (Ahmad denies this, but the original reporter stands by her story.) CAIR chapters frequently distribute pamphlets telling Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement. CAIR has opposed virtually every anti-terror measure that has been proposed or implemented and has been declared a terror organization by the United Arab Emirates. CAIR’s Hussam Ayloush in 2017 called for the overthrow of the U.S. government. CAIR’s national outreach manager is an open supporter of Hamas.
“More Than 120 Members of Congress Issue Letters of Support to Leading Anti-Israel Group,” by Adam Kredo, Washington Free Beacon
More than 120 members of Congress privately issued letters of support to a controversial Islamic-American advocacy group known for its involvement in one of America’s most prominent terrorism financing cases, according to a copy of these official communications obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), an advocacy group with deep ties to the anti-Israel movement in America, touted its support among congressional leaders during its 2019 gala conference in November in Washington, D.C. Prominent opponents of the pro-Israel community, including anti-Israel activist Linda Sarsour and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), headlined the conference.
A copy of CAIR’s conference agenda, obtained by the Free Beacon and published here for the first time, includes well over 100 letters from Democratic and Republican members of Congress, all of whom expressed their support for the controversial organization. Democrats issued the majority of the letters, with only two coming from Republican members of Congress.
The breadth of congressional support for CAIR is likely to generate concern in the pro-Israel community, which has long been at odds with the advocacy group due to its promotion of anti-Israel activists and causes.
Democratic 2020 presidential contenders Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), and Tom Steyer all penned letters of support. Prominent Democrats such as Omar, Reps. Adam Schiff (D., Calif.), Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich), and Eric Swalwell (D., Calif.) also lent their support to CAIR’s agenda, according to materials reviewed by the Free Beacon.
CAIR has long been central to the anti-Israel movement in America.
“CAIR’s anti-Israel agenda dates back to its founding by leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a Hamas affiliated anti-Semitic propaganda organization,” according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which combats anti-Israel bias. “While CAIR has denounced specific acts of terrorism in the U.S. and abroad, for many years it refused to unequivocally condemn Palestinian terror organizations and Hezbollah by name, which the U.S. and international community have condemned and isolated.”
CAIR is also known for its involvement in a fundraising scheme tied to the Muslim Brotherhood that sought to support the Hamas terror organization. That case, known as the Holy Land Foundation trial, unearthed evidence that CAIR and its founders sought to lend backchannel support to Hamas.
In fact, “the Federal Bureau of Investigation has distanced itself from CAIR over the years,” according to the ADL. “In an April 2009 letter to the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland Security, the FBI explained that it suspended contact with CAIR because of evidence introduced during the Holy Land Foundation trial, demonstrating that CAIR and its founders were part of a group set up by the Muslim Brotherhood to support Hamas.”
Additionally, in 2014, CAIR was placed on the United Arab Emirates’s terrorism list for alleged ties to the Muslim Brotherhood organization….