Chuck Ross writes for the Washington Free Beacon about the latest actions from a suspicious Muslim group.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations teased a “major” expansion to its lobbying and political operations in the wake of Oct. 7 to give Muslims “a voice in the halls of Congress and on the campaign trails.” Nearly two years later, the pro-Hamas group’s allies and officials say their efforts helped elect New York City mayor-to-be Zohran Mamdani, with plans to “make even more history” in next year’s midterm elections.
At CAIR events this summer, anti-Semitic activist Linda Sarsour bragged that she got CAIR’s political arm, CAIR Action, and a CAIR-endorsed super PAC, Unity & Justice Fund, to back Mamdani’s campaign. “You need to move that PAC [to support Mamdani],” Sarsour said at a CAIR event in August. Unity & Justice Fund raised $173,000 through September and spent most of that money—$143,500—backing Mamdani.
“The story is not just that it’s random that Zohran ascended to this place,” Sarsour said at another CAIR event in September. “It’s Muslim money.”
It’s part of an aggressive foray into campaign politics for CAIR, a purportedly apolitical charity known for launching legal fights against anti-Muslim discrimination. While CAIR itself cannot endorse political candidates or spend on elections, its political arm, CAIR Action, can. Then there’s the Unity & Justice Fund. The super PAC is not legally associated with CAIR, but its treasurer, Basim Elkarra, doubles as the head of CAIR Action. The two groups also share office space in Washington, D.C., and CAIR Action gave the PAC $10,000 in May, campaign finance disclosures show.
Together, the entities create what Sarsour called a “new level of sophistication” in CAIR’s political efforts. It was long in the making.
Nihad Awad, the CAIR executive director who said he was “happy to see” Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, first touted “a major breakthrough in the way we do business and the way we speak to our politicians nationwide” shortly after the attack during a Dec. 10, 2023, interview.
