Haley Strack writes for National Review Online about one U.S. senator’s focus on a controversial group with links to terrorism.
Senator Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) called for an Internal Revenue Services investigation into the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on Tuesday, citing the nonprofit organization’s history of ties to terrorism.
“CAIR purports to be a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of American Muslims. But substantial evidence confirms CAIR has deep ties to terrorist organizations,” Cotton wrote in a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long.
“In fact, in the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history, CAIR was listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee,” he continued. “Government exhibits from the trial revealed that CAIR’s founders participated in a meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia, where they discussed strategies to advance the Islamist agenda in America while concealing their true affiliations.”
Founded in 1994 as a Muslim advocacy firm headquartered in Washington, D.C., CAIR’s ties to terror organizations have been investigated for decades. In 1993, just before the organization was launched, Nihad Awad, the co-founder Cotton referenced, attended a three-day summit of U.S. Hamas affiliates during which attendees discussed a strategy to disrupt the Oslo Accords.
The U.S. government also named CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, during which HLF officials were convicted of providing Hamas millions of dollars in support.
CAIR accused Cotton of repeating “debunked conspiracy theories” and decried what they called the senator’s “baseless” claims.
“We are an independent American civil rights organization that has spent over thirty years defending the Constitution, countering anti-Muslim bigotry, and opposing injustice here and abroad, including discrimination, hate crimes, terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide,” CAIR said in a statement.
“We specifically condemned the Oct. 7th attacks on civilians, just as we condemn the ongoing genocide in Gaza. This is called moral consistency. Senator Cotton should try it.”
