Rack up a win for the Council on American-Islamic Relations and a network of other U.S. Islamist organizations controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood.
Not only has the Brotherhood thus far managed to avoid the Trump White House designating it a terrorist organization, but its U.S. affiliates still hold enormous sway over the Republican-dominated Congress.
The latest evidence of that fact played out on Capitol Hill last Thursday, in a stunning turn of events that received no coverage from the national media and elicited nary a peep out of the conservative media.
Islamic Relief Worldwide, or IRW, a United Kingdom-based humanitarian relief agency with a U.S. chapter, has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. federal grants in recent years, including $370,000 for the fiscal years 2015 and 2016. Quite naturally, IRW wants to keep the spigot of federal dollars flowing, despite the charity’s links to the terrorist group Hamas.
U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., introduced an amendment to the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Act that would have banned all federal funding of IRW and its affiliates.
When they got wind of DeSantis’ amendment, CAIR and other Islamist groups blitzed members of Congress with a last-minute lobbying effort to vote against the amendment. House leaders capitulated, withdrawing the amendment last Thursday before it was even brought up for a vote.
As a result, Hamas terrorists will continue to have access to federal tax dollars.
IRW is an Islamist charity that has funneled money to Hamas and has ties to the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, according to the highly respected Islamist Watch project of Daniel Pipes’ Middle East Forum.
The Washington Free Beacon has also reported on the money flow from IRW to Hamas.
House Speaker Paul Ryan has accepted campaign donations from Islamists tied to CAIR.
Ryan on March 30, 2016, accepted a $1,000 check from Asad Malik, former board member of CAIR Michigan. Malik, the president and CEO of hotel company Amerilodge Group, also gave $500 that year to Rep. Mike Bishop, R-Mich., for his re-election campaign, and another $500 to the Michigan Republican Party, according to the Federal Elections Commission.
Islamic Relief Wordwide has a long history of promoting extremist ideology across both America and Europe and claims to have already received $704,662 in taxpayers’ money.
CAIR put out an action alert Sept. 7 for its supporters to call members of Congress and urge them to vote against the DeSantis Amendment.
A 2014 report by the Clarion Project showed multi-level links between IRW and Hamas, and/or with Muslim Brotherhood front groups such as CAIR, the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim American Society, going back to another infamous Islamic charity organization known as the Holy Land Foundation. The HLF was designated as a terrorist organization and shut down by the U.S. government in December 2001.
History will not look kindly on those in government who indulge in such blatant willful blindness, said Philip Haney, a founding member of the Department of Homeland Security who co-authored the whistleblower book “See Something Say Nothing.”
“We are nearly 10 years past the time when claims of ignorance can be used as an excuse,” Haney said.
Azhar Aziz, current president of the Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA, is the former director of Fund Development for Islamic Relief-USA (a direct subsidiary of IRW).
‘Putting all of us at risk’
“The fact that representatives of CAIR and ISNA, both co-conspirators in the 2008 HLF trial, still have enough influence within the halls of Congress in 2017 to actually stop legislation designed to prevent the funding of yet another Muslim Brotherhood-linked charity organization, shows that members of Congress have abrogated their constitutional duty to protect American citizens from global Islamic terrorism, and put us all at further risk,” Haney said.
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch for the David Horowitz Freedom Center, said nothing was learned from the 2007-08 Holy Land Foundation trial in which several Muslim Brotherhood operatives were sent to prison for their roles in funneling tax-exempt Islamic charitable donations to Hamas terrorists.
“The Obama administration quashed investigations of some of the ‘unindicted co-conspirators,’ notably CAIR,” Spencer told WND. “It was a one-off, and probably most current U.S. representatives have no idea what the Holy Land Foundation was, or that there was a trial, much less the implications of that trial”
What does this say about the current Republican-controlled Congress?
“That they’re an unprincipled gang of self-aggrandizers and clueless narcissists whose only interests are lining their pockets and getting reelected, not confronting hard issues or protecting the American people,” Spencer said. “Incredible disappointment that Trump has changed nothing.”
John Guandolo, former counter-terrorism specialist with the FBI who now works as a consultant to law enforcement with Understanding the Threat, said the news is not surprising. Washington is under the full control of globalists in both parties who consider it a top priority to deny the threat of the global Islamic movement.
Trump avoids mentioning Islam at 9/11 memorial events
He said he and his business partner were in New York for 9/11 ceremonies and was astounded at the concerted effort to conceal who the enemy was that attacked the U.S. that day 16 years ago.
“We were sad to see the president did not even mention this, or Islam, during any of his speeches when discussing the attacks of 9/11/01,” Guandolo told WND in an email Tuesday. “From our perspective, the purge of the current administration is complete.
“Counter-state actors like Paul Ryan, John McCain, Reince Prebius. Herbert McMaster and others have done their work well.”
Stopping this kind of influence over America’s own government is exactly why the Muslim Brotherhood – and its U.S.-based affiliates – should be designated as a terrorist organization, said Haney.
“And it’s why they should be banned from any further influence within America’s social, political and/or law enforcement arenas,” he said. “Other countries have already taken such measures; what are we waiting for, here in the land of the free, and the home of the brave?”