FBI Stops Returning CAIR's Phone Calls. Finally.

The following story from the Investigative Project on Terrorism is welcome news, long, long, long overdue.

I wouldn’t say the FBI seeing the light about CAIR exactly proves there is a God; but it does prove that repetition of simple, glaring facts, over long periods of time, does actually get exceptionally slow (and reluctant) learners to grasp new and exciting concepts. Eventually. Sometimes.

FBI Cuts Off CAIR Over Hamas Questions

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has cut off contacts with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) amid mounting concern about the Muslim advocacy group's roots in a Hamas-support network, the Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR was made quietly last summer as federal prosecutors prepared for a second trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), an Islamic charity accused of providing money and political support to the terrorist group Hamas, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

CAIR and its chairman emeritus, Omar Ahmad, were named un-indicted co-conspirators in the HLF case. Both Ahmad and CAIR's current national executive director, Nihad Awad, were revealed on government wiretaps as having been active participants in early Hamas-related organizational meetings in the United States. During testimony, FBI agent Lara Burns described CAIR as a front organization.

Hamas is a US-designated foreign terrorist organization, and it's been illegal since 1995 to provide support to it within the United States.

The decision to end contacts with CAIR is a significant policy change for the FBI. For years, the FBI worked with the national organization and its state chapters to address Muslim community concerns about the potential for hate crimes and other civil liberty violations in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist
attacks.

But critics said the FBI improperly conferred legitimacy on CAIR by meeting with its officials, even as its own investigative files contained evidence of CAIR leaders' ties to Hamas.

Please read this important article in its entirety.

We've been tracking this problem a long time, such as here, here, here, and here. The feds have been as stubborn as they can be. In fact, stupidly so. I can only imagine that this present decision, made in the nick of time before the hopeless Eric Holder becomes Attorney General, is an effort to prevent the FBI from being left completely on the outside of whatever domestic counterterrorism efforts will be left during the Obama administration.

It certainly appears that the FBI's decision was made last summer after federal proescutors lost the Holy Land Foundation case the first time. I think the prosecutors desperately tried to explain to the FBI the difficulties of convincing a jury that the bad guys are really so bad, when defendants keep showing jurors their coffee mugs from the nation's premier law enforcement agency with the "Friends Share Everything" motto on it.

I'll bet at least one prosecutor even had to be talked out of naming the FBI as an unindicted co-conspirator.

CAIR's Dawud Walid Recognized in Lansing

Our favorite local CAIR executive director, Dawud Walid, was at Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing last September receiving an award from the mayor Virg Bernero.

“Walid was giving a speech, ironically titled ‘Building Bridges.’ The event was the City of Lansing’s first annual Unity Iftar Program,” writes Joe Kaufman at FrontPage Magazine. (“Hate and Terror Awarded”).

Kaufman's article gives all of us some additional background on Walid, whom we know around here for magically appearing as official spokesman at every single Muslim-related event in Michigan. Kaufman writes:

First and foremost, Walid is involved with CAIR-Michigan, as the organization’s Executive Director. CAIR recently was designated by the United States government as an “unindicted co-conspirator” for a federal trial that ran from July through October of 2007, which dealt with the financing of millions of dollars to Hamas. During the trial, the FBI provided testimony proving CAIR’s involvement with the former head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, in his American Palestine Committee. The government reiterated CAIR’s “affiliation” with Hamas, in a federal court brief filed in December of 2007.

As well, Walid is an active member of the North American Imams Federation (NAIF). Other members of NAIF include Mazen Mokhtar, an Al-Qaeda web designer who was indicted in April of 2007 for tax evasion and for filing false tax returns, and Siraj Wahhaj, an “unindicted co-conspirator” of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The President of NAIF is Omar Shahin, a former representative of two Hamas-related “charities,” KindHearts and the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF), both of which have been shut down by the U.S. government.

Furthermore, Walid is the assistant imam of Masjid Wali Muhammad. Formerly Muhammad’s Temple No. 1, the mosque has very close ties to the Nation of Islam (NOI) and its former Supreme Minister, Elijah Muhammad, whose picture adorns the inside of the mosque.

The mosque’s ties to NOI have not escaped Walid. In February of last year, he joined others, at a press conference to welcome the group and its overtly anti-Semitic leader, Louis Farrakhan, to Detroit. About Farrakhan’s appearance, Walid stated with great anticipation, “We have been told that Minister Farrakhan is going to be making a big announcement at this meeting.”

Speaking of “bridges,” I find Walid an interesting example of a bridge himself, the way he somehow straddles the unbridgeable divide between historical Islam, and the whacked-out science fiction version taught as Nation of Islam doctrine. (“When It Comes to Role Models, Allah Knows Best”);

Walid’s ties with NOI and Farrakhan are all the more interesting right now as we've been commenting lately on the ties between so many black churches, the NOI, traditional Islam, and all of them seem to work so closely with many black political leaders. See ("What’s Kwame Got to Do with Dearborn? Part I"); and (" Detroit Clergy Look Forward to Ecumaniacal Embrace of Nation of Islam").

Read the rest of Kaufman’s very thorough article here.