Muslim Mafia (26 page)

The request includes volumes of militant Sunni interpretations of the
hadith
, or reports of the sayings and actions of Muhammad. All three texts are violent and call for the killing of Jews, Christians, and Muslims who do not adhere to
Shariah
.

“Brother Nihad Awad, Brother Omar Ahmad, and all the brothers and sisters from CAIR send their
Salaam
and regards to everyone at the embassy,” wrote then-CAIR Operations Director Khalid Iqbal in closing out his order to the Saudis.
²⁹

Despite enjoying major support from such Arab governments and launching a major propaganda offensive in the U.S. on their behalf, CAIR has managed to avoid registering as a lobbyist or foreign agent and all the scrutiny and transparency that goes along with it.

The Foreign Agents Registration Act limits the influence of foreign agents and propaganda on U.S. public policy. The law states that organizations are required to register with the Justice Department when they act on “the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal.” They must submit detailed disclosure reports if they engage in “political activities for, or in the interests of,” a foreign principal, or if they “act in a public relations capacity” for one.

Foreign agents, moreover, must file and regularly update complete lists of employees and funds received and disclose copies of any written agreements and the terms and conditions of each oral agreement with a foreign principal. They also are required by law to provide detailed information about any distribution of propaganda and all lobbying contacts they make with any U.S. government agency or official.

If its activities were not hidden under the false claim of civil rights advocacy and protected under the
aegis
of tax-exempt status, CAIR no doubt would have to register as a foreign agent and reveal more than it is willing to reveal about its financing and political activities.

Far from representing grassroots American interests, CAIR acts as an organ for Arab regimes that have facilitated terrorist attacks on America and are fanning a subversive Islamist movement here. Members of Congress who cozy up to CAIR should take heed when its unregistered lobbyists darken their doorways.

As the next chapter uncovers, CAIR is plotting to run a major influence operation against Capitol Hill, and is specifically targeting sensitive committees dealing with homeland security.

“We will focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community—for example, congressmen on the judiciary, intelligence, and homeland security committees.”

—Council on American-Islamic Relations 2007-2008 Strategic Plan
¹

L
AST YEAR’S
D
EMOCRATIC LANDSLIDE
was a watershed moment for CAIR and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups. They now have loyal boosters and cheerleaders at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

During the election, CAIR’s leaders gave money to Barack Obama and met privately with his campaign officials.
²
And in the final weeks before the election, some CAIR officials left the group’s national office to campaign for the Democratic candidate in hotly contested states.

After Obama was sworn in as president, they swooned every time he made an overture to Muslims or sang a paean to Islam, such as the time at the White House National Prayer Breakfast when he read from one of Islam’s sacred texts. “Did you see the clip of him quoting
hadith
?!” gushed one CAIR alumna in an email to colleagues.

“We look forward to partnering with the Obama administration,” cooed recently seated CAIR Chairman Larry Shaw, a black convert to Islam.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, CAIR’s “fortunes look to be on the rise” as well, worries one senior Republican congressional aide.

Already sympathetic to CAIR’s agenda, Democrats have padded their majority in the House, and now enjoy filibuster-proof control of the Senate. They also command key committees dealing with law enforcement, intelligence, and homeland security, providing even softer targets for CAIR.

In a strategy paper marked “Company Proprietary” and written before the election, CAIR outlined a plan to launch an influence operation against members of these committees, while planting CAIR staffers and interns inside congressional offices.

“We will focus on influencing congressmen responsible for policy that directly impacts the American Muslim community. (For example, congressmen on the judiciary, intelligence, and homeland security committees.),” states the document listing CAIR’s top long-term goals. “We will develop national initiatives such as a lobby day and placing Muslim interns in congressional offices.”
³

Its influence operation is well under way and already proving effective. Recently, seven House Democrats – including Mary Jo Kilroy of the homeland security committee and Adam Schiff of the judiciary and intelligence committees – delivered a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding he meet with CAIR and ISNA and other Muslim Brotherhood front groups and address their grievances, including the FBI’s use of informants in mosques and religious profiling of terrorist suspects.
⁴

CAIR’s tentacles already reach deep inside the warrens of Congress. Its officials meet regularly with Democratic Representative Keith Ellison, the nation’s first Muslim congressman, along with Muslim staffers from both the House and Senate. They hold forums and panel discussions in Capitol Building conference rooms that even members of Congress have a hard time reserving. On Fridays, they gather with other Muslims in a basement room of the Capitol to pray toward Mecca.

That’s not all. CAIR leaders have closely collaborated with the head of the powerful House Judiciary Committee on legislation denying law enforcement critical anti-terrorism tools.
⁵
And they’ve met privately with the assistant to the Speaker of the House to help hammer out a hate crimes bill and other legislation on their wish list.
⁶

CAIR also has forged close alliances with three lawmakers recently appointed to serve on a key House Foreign Affairs subcommittee that has oversight of Mideast military basing rights and all foreign aid sent to the region, including Israel.

CAIR’S SPIES IN CONGRESS

Worse, CAIR has its own people working on the inside of Congress. Internal CAIR communications and other documents reveal that CAIR has strategically placed operatives inside the federal offices of Representative Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Representative Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and Representative Joe Sestak (D-PA) among others.

And now these CAIR agents are using their positions of power to legitimize a front group for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and advance its subversive agenda.

Sestak aide Adeeba al-Zaman, for one, booked the congressman to speak at a $50-a-plate CAIR fundraiser in Philadelphia where he praised CAIR and Islam’s supposedly “peaceful” tenets.

Sestak, a retired vice admiral, shared the spotlight with another special guest that night in April 2007 at the posh Hilton Philadelphia. As he and his congressional staff looked on, CAIR’s national chairman presented an award to the founder of Bridges TV—Muzzammil Hassan—who recently confessed to murdering his wife by decapitation.
⁷

Before serving as Sestak’s outreach coordinator, al-Zaman was communications director of CAIR’s Philadelphia chapter. Her stepfather serves on the organization’s board and also heads a local mosque controlled by the radical Muslim Brotherhood.
⁸

Over at the Senate, CAIR has cultivated Muslim moles inside the offices of key Democrat leaders—including Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on human rights. His aide Reema Dodin—who’s in regular contact with CAIR—is a Palestinian rights activist who organized anti-Israel rallies as a campus radical at UC Berkeley.
⁹

Commenting on the 9/11 attacks as a leader of the radical Muslim Students Association—which was founded by Muslim Brotherhood members—Dodin explained away the suicide attacks as a tragic but inevitable response to U.S. support for Israel, which she says is “angering” Muslims the world over.

“No one wants to stop and think that these young men, in the prime of their lives, choose to do this to themselves. Why?” she said in an interview with a campus magazine. “Because now you have three generations of Palestinians born under occupation.
¹⁰

“Maybe if you start to look at Palestinians as human beings,” she added, “you will stop the suicide bombers.”

Dodin went on to justify violent jihad. “Islam does teach that you must defend yourself,” she said. “You cannot lie down and allow yourself, your home, your property, your family, and your people to be consistently oppressed.”

At the same time, she condemned U.S. strikes against the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, complaining that the military was “just going to hit innocent civilians.”

PENETRATING ‘THE SYSTEM’

Today, Durbin’s legislative aide points to the election of two Muslim congressmen—Democrats Ellison of Minnesota and Andre Carson of Indiana—as proof Muslims can penetrate “the system” and bring about change from within.

All told, there are now upwards of fifty Muslim activists working on Capitol Hill today. Their growing presence raises alarms, counterintelligence officials say, because a stated goal of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood is the infiltration of key government agencies and institutions like Congress.

During a secret Muslim Brotherhood meeting he organized last decade, CAIR founder and former chair Omar Ahmad expressed the need to strengthen “the influence with Congress.” He argued for using Muslims as an “entry point” to “pressure Congress and the decision makers in America” to change U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East and other policies.
¹¹

The same FBI wiretaps reveal that CAIR’s other founder and current leader, Nihad Awad, early on proposed sponsoring internships and fellowships as a vehicle for infiltrating government “institutions.”
¹²

Until it recently ran out of money, CAIR had been doing exactly that—sponsoring congressional fellowships. In 2007, CAIR budgeted $50,000 for two fellows, according to an internal spreadsheet. It filled at least one of those fellowship positions that year.
¹³

In a 2007 report to Awad, a copy of which was obtained during 2008’s undercover operation, CAIR Legislative Director Corey Saylor reported that he “placed Samia Elshafie in the office of Representative Jackson-Lee.”
¹⁴
Elshafie has acted as the congresswoman’s office contact for human rights issues.

Since the election, Saylor, a white convert who looks like an accountant, has worked with Jihad F. Saleh, a top Meeks aide and program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association,
¹⁵
to promote more Muslims into positions of power. They think the Muslim-friendly 111th Congress and the Obama administration offer fertile ground for planting agents for the cause.

“The past election was a watershed for the Muslim community,” says Saleh, a black Muslim convert previously known as Benny “B.J.” Williams.

SOLICITING RESUMÉS FROM THE MUSLIM MAFIA

The forty-five-member Muslim staffers association—the only one in Congress centered on religion—is now headed by Pakistani-American Assad R. Akhter, the legislative director for Democratic Representative Bill Pascrell of New Jersey. Pascrell has taken heat for reserving hard-to-get meeting rooms for CAIR in the Capitol.

The Congressional Muslim Staffers Association also includes members of the U.S. Capitol Police Department, responsible for protecting Congress from terrorism and other threats.

“We have a good representation of Arabs, Afro-Americans, South Asians, Reverts, and Latinos,” Saleh says, adding that members “discuss Islam when the need arises.” During 2008’s Ramadan, the group served eight hundred DC Muslims at the annual congressional
Iftar
, which it co-hosts with CAIR. The dinner typically draws several members of Congress and dozens of congressional staffers.

Saleh, 34, has been busy conducting workshops for “Muslim professionals” to “capitalize” on the change in power and “ensure that Muslim Americans are prominent in the Obama administration.”

“Muslims would greatly benefit by participating in the new government,” he says.

To that end, he has gathered more than three hundred resumés for various positions on Capitol Hill—from chief of staff to committee counsel to press secretary. He also sent his “resumé book” to the Obama administration, where he hopes Muslim applicants will be considered for several thousand jobs in the new government.

Unbeknownst to many in Washington, Saleh has solicited resumés from Muslim Brotherhood front groups including ISNA and CAIR.
¹⁶
Last year, in fact, Saleh conducted a workshop at CAIR’s offices on Muslim activism in government.
¹⁷

The recruitment from the ranks of ISNA and CAIR is a major red flag, the senior congressional aide warns. He says the resumé book could present a security threat if not properly vetted. “If one person in there has ties to radicals,” he says, “then the whole booklet is tarnished.”
¹⁸

The White House has confirmed it received the resumé book and has already hired a woman endorsed by Saleh and his group as an advisor on Islamic affairs. Egyptian-born Dalia Mogahed—the first veiled Muslim woman to be appointed to a position in the White House—will brief President Obama on what Muslims want from the U.S. She joins two full-time Muslim hires in the White House.

“He’s done a lot” already for the Muslim community, Ellison says of Obama, “and I believe he will do more.”

Saleh also is confident Obama—who wants to convene a “Muslim summit” to show his respect for their religion—will consider more Muslims for posts in the administration. “I trust that Americans will accept the principled leadership of Muslims who aspire to establish the Beloved Community,
insha’Allah
,” Saleh says without elaborating on what he means by establishing “the Beloved Community.”
¹⁹

But Saleh, whose policy portfolio under Meeks includes homeland security, is a fan of the pan-Islamist, pro-jihadist
imam
Zaid Shakir, according to Saleh’s posts on Twitter.com, where he tweets under the name “blackjihad.” Shakir has declared the 82
^nd
Airborne and other U.S. military fair game in jihad, and has urged followers to transform the U.S. into “a Muslim country” ruled by Islamic law.

‘SEEDS FOR 9/11 PLANTED IN 1948’

Saleh also advises Meeks on foreign policy, and has taken “fact-finding” trips to the Middle East, according to congressional travel records.

CAIR boasts internally that it has “many potential allies in Congress,” and that its foreign- and domestic-policy agendas dovetail with theirs. Topping their international agenda: