John Kerry tried to remove CAIR from terror list

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Saudi King Salman

As secretary of state, John Kerry lobbied the United Arab Emirates to remove two controversial Washington, D.C.-based Muslim groups from the Arab Gulf state's list of terrorist organizations.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations – an unindicted co-conspirator in a plot to fund the terrorist group Hamas – and the Muslim American Society are two of 83 groups on the UAE's list because of their connections to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism reported Kerry authorized State Department officials to meet regularly with UAE officials to lobby on behalf of CAIR and MAS, which were designated terrorist organizations on Nov. 16, 2014, along with groups such as ISIS and al-Qaida.

At a State Department press briefing two days after UAE released its list, a spokesman said State does not "consider CAIR or MAS to be terrorist groups" but was seeking more information from UAE about its decision.

The spokesman said, "As part of our routine engagement with a broad spectrum of faith-based organizations, a range of U.S. government officials have met with officials of CAIR and MAS."

"We at the State Department regularly meet with a wide range of faith-based groups to hear their views even if some of their views expressed at times are controversial," the spokesman said.

IPT commented that in making the admission, the State Department official "had effectively affirmed the Obama administration policy of embracing radical Islamist groups under the euphemism of calling them 'faith-based groups.'"

CAIR and MAS are unveiled in "See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government's Submission to Jihad," by former DHS officer Philip Haney and WND Editor Art Moore. Get it now at the WND Superstore!

While CAIR regards itself as a civil-rights organization, according to evidence entered in the terror-financing case, it was founded by figures associated with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the worldwide movement that has stated its intent to transform the U.S. into an Islamic state. More than a dozen CAIR leaders have been charged or convicted of terrorism-related crimes.

The Muslim American Society was formed as the Muslim Brotherhood's overt arm in the United States. Co-founder Abdurrahman Alamoudi is served a 23-year prison sentence for engaging in illegal transactions with Libya and facilitating a Libyan plot to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

If you support WND’s fight to expose CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood, please consider a donation to the WND Legal Defense Fund for court fights like this one – which must be one if America is to remain free – and safe.

Massive evidence ignored

Despite the massive evidence linking CAIR to Hamas and other terror groups, the Obama administration repeatedly invited CAIR officials and other supremacist Islamic groups to the White House, IPT noted.

In December 2014, CAIR met with top officials of the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, asking them to pressure the UAE to remove them from the list, according to IPT sources.

CAIR issued a press release Dec. 22, 2014, asserting that "the two American Muslim organizations and the U.S. government pledged to work together to achieve a positive solution to the UAE designations."

IPT commented that this "sordid episode of going to bat for a Hamas-support organization is emblematic of the larger problem of the Obama's administration's inability to pinpoint the heart of the impasse between the Palestinians and the Israelis as unceasing Palestinian terrorism, continued Palestinian subsidies paid to terrorist families, incendiary glorification of terrorists who kill Jews, and massive anti-Semitic incitement in Palestinian schools and media."

Kerry's lobbying for CAIR began with his response to a letter he received from CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad on May 5, 2015.

Kerry replied: "Let me reiterate, first, that the U.S. government clearly does not consider CAIR to be a terrorist organization. As your letter noted, the Department of State rejected this allegation immediately after the UAE designations were announced in November, and we will continue to do so."

Kerry said U.S. officials "have raised the issue of CAIR's inclusion on the UAE's terror list with UAE officials on multiple occasions."

IPT noted that portion of the letter now appears on CAIR's website, but, according to sources, at the time it was sent to CAIR, there was an agreement between CAIR and the State Department to keep it secret to protect Kerry from public embarrassment.

IPT observed that in light of CAIR's "numerous ties to Hamas and other unsavory aspects of its record, Kerry had good reason to believe that the letter could cause a public relations disaster for him."

Despite Kerry's efforts, there has been no indication CAIR and MAS were removed from the Gulf state's terrorist list.

When the UAE list was published, CAIR, attempting to avoid a public relations disaster, published a FAQ attacking the UAE as a "politically 'authoritarian' regime."

At one time, however, CAIR apparently had a good relationship with the UAE. In 2006, Awad and CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper led a delegation on a fundraising trip to the Gulf state, seeking millions of dollars from UAE donors.

A cable obtained by the IPT through the Freedom of Information Act show that CAIR officials met with top UAE leaders and attended an evening reception "in honor of the CAIR group" hosted by a top presidential adviser.

The cable also noted that "UAE press has reported that Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid al-Makhtoum Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance and Industry, 'has endorsed a proposal to build a property in the U.S. to serve as an endowment for CAIR.'"

The cable added that CAIR had already received substantial contributions from several wealthy UAE donors, including one who had already given CAIR $1 million.

Brotherhood front

CAIR's parent organization, according to FBI wiretap evidence from the terror-funding Holy Land Foundation case in Texas, was founded at an October 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in Philadelphia that included CAIR Executive Director Awad. The organization, 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.

While CAIR has complained of the unindicted co-conspirator designation, 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."

In 2008, the FBI cut off official contact with CAIR, citing evidence from the Holy Land Foundation terror funding trial which documented the connections between CAIR and its founders to Hamas.

In a lawsuit CAIR filed in 2009 against an undercover investigative team that published evidence of CAIR's ties to Islamic jihad, the group alleged its reputation was harmed, and it sought damages in court.

But a federal court in Washington determined CAIR failed to present a single fact showing it had been harmed, and the organization gave up that specific claim against former federal investigator Dave Gaubatz and his son, Chris Gaubatz, whose findings were published in the WND Books expose, "Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America."

Get the new paperback edition of "Muslim Mafia."

In a May 27, 2014, ruling, the U.S. District Court in Washington observed that CAIR had been "frustratingly unclear as to the injuries at issue for each of the claims." The court found CAIR speaks "in broad generalizations, asserting injuries and damages and proximate cause across multiple counts and multiple Plaintiffs."

CAIR leaders have made statements affirming the aim of establishing Islamic rule in the United States.

The Islamic organization long had accused WND and others of "smearing" the Muslim group by citing a newspaper account of CAIR founder Omar Ahmad telling Muslims in Northern California in 1998 that they were in America not to assimilate but to help assert Islam's rule over the country.

But WND caught CAIR falsely claiming that it had contacted the paper and had "sought a retraction," insisting Ahmad never made the statement.

In a telephone conversation with WND in 2003, CAIR's communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, insisted someone from CAIR’s California affiliate made the contact with the paper.

When confronted with the fact that the newspaper’s editors had told WND that CAIR had not contacted them and that the reporter stood by the story, Hooper abruptly ended the call, saying: “If you are going to use distortions, I can’t stop you; it’s a free country. Have a nice day.”

Minutes later, however, Hooper called back and said he wanted to change his statement to say, “We will seek a retraction, and we have spoken to the reporter about it in the past.”

But three years later, the issue arose again, and WND found CAIR still had not contacted the paper.

Hooper, himself, also has expressed a desire to overturn the U.S. system of government in favor of an Islamic state.

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."