CAIR on Trial Too

Listening to the Sox vs. Sox, browsing on the net. I've questioned why any reputable media still goes to CAIR for quotes, latest on Obama's short-lived Muslim advisor, let alone lets them publish guest opinion pieces. CAIR claims political cover from their tenuous association with the Dept. of Homeland Security. (Oh and they have a solar mosque.) Now we hear about a relationship with the FBI. How bizarre is that, as they themselves have been named an unindicted co-conspirator in the same Holy Land case under discussion. Andrew C. McCarthy in 2007 (his bio here, most recent book here, um, it's called "Willful Blindness"):

CAIR, you see, was birthed by a Hamas creation: the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). Several of CAIR’s top officials, including its founders, Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad, were high-ranking IAP officers (respectively, its president and public-relations director). Ibrahim Hooper, CAIR’s communications director, and now TSA’s go-to guy, is a former IAP employee — and, though you would never know it from the TSA, Hooper makes no secret that he would like to see the United States become an Islamic country under sharia law. As it happens, the IAP was started in 1981 by high-ranking Hamas operative Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook. Long a specially designated global terrorist under U.S. law, Marzook is also currently wanted on a U.S. terrorism indictment in Chicago, and named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a second U.S. terrorism indictment (which explains that he helps run Hamas’s “Political Bureau,” the branch responsible for “directing and coordinating terrorist attacks”). But he’s believed to be in Syria with other Hamas heavyweights, so maybe, using the Iraq Study Group strategy, we should just negotiate with him. In any event, so incestuous is the Hamas/IAP tie that, in 2004, a federal judge found the IAP liable for Hamas’s terrorist murder of an American citizen in Israel.

Nowhere does the TSA explain that when CAIR was founded in 1994, part of the seed money came from the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLFRD). The assets of HLFRD were frozen in 2001 based on the U.S. Treasury Department’s conclusion that it provided “millions of dollars annually that is used by HAMAS.”

Counterterrorism Blog, via the Powerline News Forum, "The FBI-CAIR Relationship Could End Very Soon":

The quick departure of a Muslim adviser to the Obama campaign after disclosure of his ties to one or more of the many unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Foundation criminal case is not just a campaign decision. It's a precedent for management guidance next year for components of the Justice Department. It doesn't have to be complicated, just something like "No component of the Department of Justice will enter into any contract, grant, or agreement with any person or entity which is an unindicted co-coinspirator in a federal criminal case brought by the Department of Justice." And that should be extended by the Office of Management and Budget to cover all Executive Branch agencies. Such a policy need not have anything to do with CAIR's grounding in the international Islamist Muslim Brotherhood network or the questionable associations and criminal convictions of several CAIR officials. (I think those associations should come into play, but we've already asserted that on this website.)

After all, the naming of an unindicted co-conspirator is no small matter; it's actively discouraged by the Justice Department. The U.S. Attorneys Manual at DOJ advises federal prosecutors to avoid naming them. "The practice of naming individuals as unindicted co-conspirators in an indictment charging a criminal conspiracy has been severely criticized in United States v. Briggs, 514 F.2d 794 (5th Cir. 1975). Ordinarily, there is no need to name a person as an unindicted co-conspirator in an indictment in order to fulfill any legitimate prosecutorial interest or duty. For purposes of indictment itself, it is sufficient, for example, to allege that the defendant conspired with "another person or persons known." The identity of the person can be supplied, upon request, in a bill of particulars. See USAM 9-27.760. With respect to the trial, the person's identity and status as a co-conspirator can be established, for evidentiary purposes, through the introduction of proof sufficient to invoke the co-conspirator hearsay exception without subjecting the person to the burden of a formal accusation by a grand jury. In the absence of some significant justification, federal prosecutors generally should not identify unindicted co-conspirators in conspiracy indictments." A prosecutor can't just throw a list out there; the presiding judge must conclude that the individual's statements or acts were in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy.

At least the Obama campaign had the sense to distance themselves from this bunch--well, you could say they just got caught. They don't need (us to know about) any more radical supporters.

CAIR is essentially on trial too, starting Sept. 8th.