'Muslim Mafia' cries foul for exposure as criminal enterprise

CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, left, and CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, center.

After three times agreeing that it had no legal basis to claim its reputation was damaged by an undercover investigation documenting its ties to global jihad, the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations is reversing itself just as a trial is about to be set.

CAIR filed suit in 2009 against former federal investigator Dave Gaubatz and his son, Chris Gaubatz, after the two published their findings in the WND Books expose’ "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."

In its lawsuit, CAIR originally alleged it suffered damages after the younger Gaubatz, posing as an intern, obtained access to some 12,000 pages of CAIR internal documents under false pretenses and made recordings of officials and employees without consent.

But U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly eliminated from the case any claim that the publication of the material or its transmission was in itself wrongful, meaning CAIR cannot claim damages.

"Muslim Mafia" documents CAIR's support of radical jihad, recounting its origin as a front group for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the worldwide movement that has stated its intent to transform the U.S. into a Saudi-style Islamic state.

Now, CAIR has filed a motion in federal court in Washington, D.C., asking for permission to depose two expert witnesses to testify that the organization suffered harm to its reputation that resulted in financial losses.

Attorney Daniel Horowitz, who represents the Gaubatzes, told WND that CAIR, essentially, wants to reopen the case to be able to claim its reputation was damaged by the exposure of its secrets.

"It's always been our claim that exposing CAIR as a criminal organization does not give them the right to sue for being exposed in that manner," Horowitz told WND.

Fight back against CAIR's attack on First Amendment by making a contribution to WND's "Legal Defense Fund." Donations of $25 or more entitle you to free copy of "Muslim Mafia" – the book so devastating to CAIR the group is trying to ban it.

"Three times in the case they agreed that they would not claim damage to reputation," he said. "Now they want to change on the eve of trial."

Horowitz said he and his colleagues are seeking sanctions against CAIR for the "frivolous and bad-faith motion," which was filed Oct. 13.

Horowitz previously told WND a trial will likely be set for next year, and the case will not settle unless CAIR dismisses and pays the Gaubatzes’ attorney’s fees.

WND reported earlier this month that "Muslim Mafia" exposed CAIR's problems with the IRS, which were noted by GOP presidential candidate Dr. Ben Carson.

CAIR's motion could delay the trial by several months, the defendants argued in an Oct. 14 joint status report, calling it "on its face frivolous, for both substantive and procedural reasons."

While CAIR touts itself as a Muslim civil rights group, federal prosecutors in 2007 named CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund Hamas, and more than a dozen CAIR leaders have been charged or convicted of terrorism-related crimes.

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. CAIR, according to the evidence, was born out of a need to give a "media twinkle" to the Muslim leaders' agenda of supporting violent jihad abroad while slowly institutionalizing Islamic law in the U.S.

As WND reported in 2010, a federal judge later determined that the Justice Department provided “ample evidence” to designate CAIR as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator, affirming the Muslim group has been involved in “a conspiracy to support Hamas."