by Sperry, Paul
“Nihad (Awad) reported that IDB is evaluating the building proposal,” a copy of the minutes states, “and considering how the entity will be structured financially.”22
After the book Infiltration exposed its silent Dubai partner, CAIR created a limited-liability holding company to shield its real estate investors. The Greater Washington LLC was formed in Delaware, which allows the owners, managers, and directors of the LLC to remain anonymous.
However, CAIR doesn’t think the holding company goes far enough to protect its real estate assets from lawsuits. Its lawyers and accountants have warned of “liability concerns in case of lawsuit,” explaining that CAIR’s assets could be attached to a judgment for damages.
“Our accountant Joey Musmar has serious concerns if CAIR does not create a totally separate entity with (a) different board of directors for the holding company,” Awad wrote in a report to the board. “He strongly feels that the current proposed structure will not protect the properties unless there is a clear separation.”23
Before the recent real estate crash, CAIR estimated the combined value of its real estate assets—including its Capitol Hill headquarters—at almost $10 million.24 Most of its investment properties are DC townhouses, and include the following addresses (along with purchase price and date of purchase):
* * *
917 2nd Street, NE…$660,000…January 21, 2005
203 K Street…$600,000…February 15, 2005
205 K Street…$600,000…February 15, 2005
923 2nd Street, NE…$1.2 million…January 6, 2006
929 2nd Street, NE…$1.2 million…January 6, 2006
210 Parker Street, NE…$419,000…April 12, 2006
919 2nd Street, NE…$500,000…July 18, 2006
208 Parker Street, NE…$410,000…September 11, 2006
* * *
CAIR has also tried to acquire two additional properties on K Street, as well as one on Second Street, an internal spreadsheet listing its assets indicates. (See Appendix.)
QUID PRO QUO?
The large donations from individuals, foundations, and sovereign wealth funds closely identified with Arab governments have raised suspicions within the Justice and Treasury Departments that CAIR may be controlled by foreign states hostile to the U.S. and its interests.
Is CAIR doing their official bidding? Has it been wrongfully acting as a lobbyist or agent for foreign governments?
There’s no doubt the group has been acting as their mouthpiece in America. But there are signs it has engaged in political activities on their behalf that are in violation of its charter.
Consider its coordination with the OIC for starters. After receiving $300,000 from the fifty-seven-member Arab alliance, CAIR organized a workshop for its leaders on “Islamophobia” held at the Prince al-Waleed bin Talal Center for Christian-Muslim Understanding at Georgetown University in Washington. During their 2007 symposium, OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and other participants made several recommendations, including:
“To work toward having a strong and effective professional lobby in the U.S. to project and protect Muslim interests.”
“To have a broader definition of hate crimes” and “to train law enforcement officials” to identify and crack down on anti-Islamic groups.
“To consider establishing an international legal instrument to criminalize acts of Islamophobia,” including adopting “legal measures against the defamation of religious icons,” including publication of cartoons of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.25
During his visit to Washington, Ihsanoglu met with Awad at CAIR’s headquarters, where Awad briefed him about CAIR “providing training to the U.S. government’s agencies and departments including the State Department and Department of Homeland Security,” an OIC report says.26
While briefing the general secretary, Awad “emphasized the need for partnership with the OIC to counter the phenomenon of Islamophobia,” the report adds. “He stated the readiness of CAIR to extend all possible assistance to the OIC.”
Internal documents show Awad routinely receives Arab delegations in his office and has hosted dinners for the UAE and Pakistani ambassadors as well as the former president of Iran. CAIR’s office calendars also show high-level meetings at the UAE embassy and other Arab consulates.
In addition to the OIC, CAIR has brokered a “strategic plan on correcting the image of Islam and Muslims among the American public” with its paymasters in the UAE, who have a vested interest in changing perceptions in the wake of its failed bid to operate U.S. ports.
The Emirates fear that if that image is not repaired, their business interests will continue on a downward slide in America. CAIR’s leaders have promised to act as a bulwark against any further backlash, and described the planned $50 million endowment as more of a business contract than charity.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT
“Do not think about your contributions as donations. Think about it from the perspective of rate of return,” former CAIR chairman Parvez Ahmed told finance ministers in Dubai, according to the Arab press. “The investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return for fifty years,” if a sufficiently Arab-friendly environment can be created in America to allow sheiks to buy up key U.S. assets.27
In other words, investing in CAIR means having a reliable lobby for UAE business interests in Washington. CAIR’s leaders have clearly stated their intention to use UAE funds to promote UAE interests in America, even though CAIR is not a registered foreign agent or even lobbyist.
Likewise, CAIR receives generous Saudi funding, and turns around and defends and promotes the interests of the Wahhabi lobby.
For example, CAIR has attacked Freedom House reports exposing the Saudi government’s dissemination of hate literature in the U.S. The reports have documented clear examples of Saudi materials in mosques and Islamic schools advocating jihad against Jews and Christians and condemning Western societies.
Yet CAIR has pooh-poohed the findings. “The Freedom House report fails to rise to the level of an objective, unbiased, and academically worthy study,” sniffed CAIR board member Nabil Sadoun.28
Similarly, CAIR has downplayed revelations that textbooks used at the Islamic Saudi Academy in northern Virginia teach Muslim children that Judaism and Christianity are false religions. The madrassa, which has graduated terrorists, is run by the Saudi embassy.
CAIR actually helps the Saudi embassy spread its hateful ideology. According to correspondence obtained from CAIR’s executive files, CAIR routinely orders religious materials from the embassy to distribute to members and to use in converting Americans to Islam. Here’s one request made by a top CAIR official in a letter to the embassy:
“On behalf of CAIR, I would like to request the following:
Understanding Islam and Muslims…2,000 copies
Islamic Library…3 sets
Riyad us Salehin…10 sets
Sahi Al-Bukhari…3 sets
Tafseer Ibn Kathir…3 sets
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.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CO-OPTING CONGRESS
“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 Plan1
LAST YEAR’S DEMOCRATIC 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 ac
tivists 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.
