Audrey Hudson reports in the Washington Times about CAIR’s ongoing attempts to be taken off the unindicted co-conspirator list. CAIR is crying “Islamophobia” at the highest levels now, claiming that the disclosure of the unindicted co-conspirator designation was “the vindictive attempt of the government to smear a group which has been critical of the government’s actions in aggressively and selectively prosecuting Muslim groups or persons.”
So you see, if the government would just stop prosecuting Muslims, and drop CAIR’s unindicted co-conspirator status, everything would be hunky dory — except for the nettlesome fact that Islamic jihadists would have a more or less free hand. Isn’t it funny how so many of CAIR’s initiatives seem to end up with exactly that result — most notoriously the Flying Imams’ suit against air passengers who reported their suspicious behavior. But CAIR is evidently more concerned about the imams’ hurt feelings than about the safety of both Muslim and non-Muslim air passengers from Islamic terror attacks on airplanes. If CAIR is truly a moderate group, it is at very least a singularly inept one. These guys are veritable Keystone Moderates.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it is suffering from a decline in membership and fundraising and blames the Justice Department for listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in a case involving a charity accused of terrorist ties.
CAIR is asking a federal judge to strike it as one of the more than 300 Muslim groups listed as unindicted co-conspirators in the government’s case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which is currently on trial in Dallas.
“The public naming of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator has impeded its ability to collect donations as possible donors either do not want to give to them because they think they are a ‘terrorist’ organization or are too scared to give to them because of the possible legal ramifications of donating money to a ‘terrorist” organization,” CAIR said in an amicus curiae brief filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas.
The brief cites reporting by The Washington Times about the organization’s declining membership “” coverage that CAIR had previously denounced as a “hit piece.”
The Justice Department shut down the Holy Land Foundation and in 2004 indicted several of its top officers who are accused of raising $36 million from 1995 through 2001 for organizations and persons linked with Hamas, designated as a terrorist organization by the Clinton administration in 1995. The foundation raised $12.4 million after the designation that made such fundraising illegal, prosecutors say.
The 42-count federal indictment accused the foundation’s officers of conspiracy, providing support to terrorists, money-laundering and income-tax evasion.
On May 29, the Justice Department made public a list naming 307 unindicted co-conspirators “” including CAIR “” in the case now being tried in the Dallas courtroom of U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish.
“The name of CAIR has been smeared by association with a criminal case that ostensibly involves the charitable funding of a ‘terrorist’ group,” said the brief filed last week.
The brief says federal prosecutors had no legitimate governmental interest in publicly releasing the names of CAIR and other unindicted co-conspirators. “Instead, the disclosure is the vindictive attempt of the government to smear a group which has been critical of the government’s actions in aggressively and selectively prosecuting Muslim groups or persons,” CAIR told the court.