David Gaubatz, an Air Force veteran, was deployed as a federal agent in Iraq at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003. |
The legal complaint by a U.S.-based Islamic lobby group asking a federal judge to expunge all copies of a best-selling exposé that documents the group's terrorist ties is an attempt to eliminate evidence that could lead to criminal prosecution, according to a lawyer defending a co-author of the book.
Daniel Horowitz, who represents "Muslim Mafia" co-author P. David Gaubatz and his son, Chris, believes the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, knows that the material is incriminating and wants it destroyed.
"So far, the Obama administration has refused to prosecute CAIR," Horowitz said, "despite undeniable evidence that following 9/11 they sought donations for 9/11 victims and passed the money to the Hamas-based Holy Land Foundation."
CAIR has insisted its designation by federal prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Justice Department's terror-finance case against the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation is unjustified. But the group admitted in a legal brief in 2009 that it solicited donations in the wake of the 9/11 attacks for Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas.
In May 2007, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the scheme.
As WND reported, CAIR is asking a federal judge to expunge all copies of "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America", which exposes the Islamic group's ties to radical jihad through original documents secured in a daring undercover operation by Chris Gaubatz, who posed as a CAIR intern.
CAIR's admission that it raised funds for the Hamas group was made in talk-radio host Michael Savage's lawsuit against CAIR and attached to a brief filed in December 2009 in the Muslim group's suit against the Gaubatzes.
In the Savage case, Horowitz asserted CAIR "exploited 9/11 as it put on its website a picture of the World Trade Center in flames and below it a call for donations that was linked to the Holy Land Foundation website."
CAIR used an image of the World Trade Center aflame after 9/11 to raise money for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which was convicted in a scheme to funnel more than $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas (Courtesy Americans Against Hate< |
CAIR's Northern California branch, while denying the organization "exploited" 9/11, admitted on page 15 of its reply that its national office "offered a link to websites for Muslim and non-Muslim organizations collecting donations for 9/11 survivors, including Holy Land Foundation's website."
In the Holy Land Foundation case, federal prosecutors listed CAIR as a member of the U.S. branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement based in Egypt that birthed al-Qaida and Hamas and other Sunni terrorist groups and seeks to establish Islamic law in America.
"In the height of cynicism, (CAIR) basically knew the money they were collecting in the name of terrorist victims was going to create more terrorist victims," said "Muslim Mafia" co-author Paul Sperry.
In the book, the authors write, "After 9/11, as rescue workers were still pulling bodies from Ground Zero, CAIR tricked visitors to its Web site into contributing to the charitable front by telling them their donations would benefit World Trade Center victims – including New York firefighters"
CAIR's "Donate to NY/DC Emergency Relief Fund" was a direct hyperlink to the website of Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, convicted in a scheme to funnel more than $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas (Courtesy Americans Against Hate |
The FBI stepped into the Gaubatz case Nov. 23, 2009, with a warrant to examine the papers and recordings, apparently as part of its concern about CAIR and its terrorist links to Hamas. The bureau cut off ties to CAIR in response to the Islamic group's role in the Holy Land Foundation case.
Just two weeks after 9/11, CAIR also began soliciting funds for the Global Relief Foundation, which also was shut down by the U.S. government on terror charges. The Treasury Department declared that the Global Relief Foundation provided support to Osama bin Laden, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.
When the Holy Land Foundation was shut down Dec. 4, 2001, CAIR removed the HLF link from its website and 10 days later removed the Global Relief Foundation link, when it, too, was closed.
The Holy Land Foundation's chairman had a direct link to CAIR. Ghassan Elashi, who was charged in December 2002 with selling computers and computer parts to terrorist-sponsoring Libya and Syria, was a founding board member of CAIR's Texas chapter.
Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism revealed the Holy Land Foundation provided at least $5,000 in revenues to CAIR as it was starting up its operations. CAIR, in turn, solicited funds for the foundation.
Check from Holy Land Foundation to help launch CAIR |
A 'media twinkle' on jihad
As "Muslim Mafia" recounts, FBI wiretap evidence from the Holy Land case showed CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad was at an October 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in Philadelphia.
At that time, Awad was public relations director for a group created by the Muslim Brotherhood called the Islamic Association for Palestine, the IAP. At the Philadelphia meeting, IAP and Holy Land Foundation officials developed a scheme to disguise payments to Hamas terrorists and their families as charity.
The creation of CAIR can be traced back to the meeting, when IAP and Holy Land officials, according to a transcript, discussed the need to give a "media twinkle" to their agenda of supporting violent jihad abroad while slowing institutionalizing Islamic law at home.
CAIR was first mentioned by name in Muslim Brotherhood documents as part of the July 30, 1994, agenda of a meeting of the Brotherhood's Palestine Committee.
The minutes reveal the purpose of the meeting was to discuss "suggestions to develop [the] work of CAIR" and its "coordination" with the IAP, Holy Land Foundation – which shared its Texas offices with the IAP – and the Washington, D.C.-based United Association for Studies and Research, or UASR. Along with IAP, UASR was co-founded by the deputy chief of Hamas' political operations, Mousa Abu Marzook.
Marzook led the Brotherhood's Palestine Committee in the America before he was designated by the U.S. as a terrorist. He and other participants at the July 1994 meeting discussed satisfying the "need for trained resources in the media and political fields" to "exert more efforts in the advancement of the Palestine Cause from the Islamic aspect."
CAIR was incorporated less than two months later.
Book ban
After filing two unsuccessful versions of its complaint in the Gaubatz case, CAIR has filed yet another amended complaint that asks the court to bar the Gaubatzes and anyone related to their effort from publishing the documents and recordings obtained in the undercover operation.
Horowitz argues the complaint does not explicitly list any damages done to the organization by "Muslim Mafia."
Posing as a Muslim, Chris Gaubatz gathered some 12,000 pages of documents, which were meant to be shredded, while serving as an intern at CAIR's national office in Washington, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol building.
In the lawsuit, however, CAIR, a self-described Muslim civil-rights group, does not defend itself against the book's claims.
Federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly in Washington, D.C., is considering CAIR's motion to file an amended complaint after the first one failed to gain traction. The Gaubatzes' legal team, meanwhile, has filed a motion to dismiss the case, pending Kollar-Kotelly's ruling.
In April, however, before the judge decided on the second complaint, CAIR attorney Nadhira Al-Khalili informed the Gaubatzes' lawyers that CAIR planned to file yet another amended complaint that added causes of action based on "newly discovered information."
Horowitz has said he hopes the judge will dismiss the first complaint and then determine whether the second and third are any different. If there is no difference, Horowitz has explained to WND, she can reject CAIR's request to amend the complaint and then throw out the case.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The CAIR legal attack on WND's author is far from over. WND needs your help in supporting the defense of "Muslim Mafia" co-author P. David Gaubatz, as well as his investigator son Chris, against CAIR's lawsuit. The book's revelations have led to formal congressional demands for three different federal investigations of CAIR. In the meantime, however, someone has to defend these two courageous investigators who have, at great personal risk, revealed so much about this dangerous group. Although WND has procured the best First Amendment attorneys in the country for their defense, we can't do it without your help. Please donate to WND's Legal Defense Fund now.
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