A federal judge in Minnesota ruled this week that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) must open its books and reveal its donors as part of a defamation suit against a disgruntled former employee.
CAIR is an organization that provides rhetorical support for terror, even though it is courted by Democrats as some kind of legitimate representative of the Muslim American community.
CAIR director Nihad Awad even celebrated the October 7, 2023, terror attacks by Hamas against Israel.
In addition, as Breitbart News has noted:
In 2007-8, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the terror financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. That case, in turn, led the FBI to discontinue its work with the organization. In 2009, a federal judge ruled that the government “produced ample evidence to establish” the ties of CAIR with Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization. The United Arab Emirates labeled CAIR a terrorist organization in 2014 (a decision that the Obama administration opposed).
After former chapter leader Lori Saroya accused the group of taking money from foreign governments and having ties to terror, CAIR sued her for defamation. She then sought discovery in the case, which U.S. Magistrate Judge David Schultz granted on Monday.
As the Algemeiner reported:
Shultz, a Minnesota district judge, cited how the organization claimed that its former employee “falsely implied CAIR received funding from foreign governments and terrorists when she stated CAIR accepted ‘international funding through their Washington Trust Foundation.’”
The judge asserted that “discovery into these matters is proportionate to the needs of the case.”
The New York Post also noted:
Saroya’s lawyer, Jeffrey Robbins, described Monday’s ruling as “the mother of all legal boomerangs.”
…
Robbins explained that the order will force CAIR to “turn over evidence about everything from fundraising practices, such as having raised money from foreign sources and concealed it; whether it deceived donors; whether it mismanaged donor money; whether it retaliated against employees or threatened to retaliate against employees for raising concerns about sexual harassment or the like.”
The Biden administration enlisted CAIR’s help in formulating its “strategy” on antisemitism in May 2023. The result was that CAIR convinced the administration to exclude extreme criticism of Israel from the government’s formal definition of antisemitism.
A few months later, there was an explosion of antisemitism on college campuses and in major cities in the wake of the Hamas terror attacks of October 7.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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