Congressional apologists for domestic jihadis.

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CAIR's Congressional StoogesBy Steven Emerson
Seven House Democrats have written Attorney General Eric Holder invoking a list of grievances from radical Islamist groups and asking that Holder meet with representatives from those groups to hear their concerns. The grievances include the use of convicted felons as informants in mosques, alleged religious profiling of Somali Muslims in Minnesota and elsewhere and allegations that the FBI is working with foreign governments to question American citizens who are terror suspects... These issues have been pushed by radical Islamist groups for months. The letter's close tracking of the interest groups' positions indicates that their officials dictated its terms for the members of Congress to sign. In fact, the nine entities all are listed in exactly the same sequence in this release from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). The April 2009 release also cites two of the same issues as in the letter to Holder.The letter was signed by California representatives Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Mike Honda and Lois Capps, along with Ohio representatives Mary Jo Kilroy and Dennis Kucinich. Northern Virginia Congressman James Moran joined the group.***Disturbingly, these serve on committees on "defense, Homeland Security, and Intelligence."*** ...Many of the groups listed for Holder to meet have radical histories and agendas. For example, the Islamic Circle of North America adheres to similar ideology as the Jamaat-i-Islami, which calls for Islamic revolution and creating an Islamist state in Pakistan. In the U.S., ICNA aggressively proselytizes among non-Muslims. The Muslim Public Affairs Council argues that Hizballah should not be a designated terrorist organization.Three other groups listed for contact have direct roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, an international movement based in Egypt which seeks the creation of a global Islamic state, or Caliphate. Those groups include the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim Students Association, the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation, which is run by a convicted felon and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). Prosecutors included CAIR on a list of unindicted co-conspirators in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and development, considered the nation's largest terrorism-finance case. FBI case Agent Lara Burns labeled CAIR a front group for Hamas during sworn testimony last fall. While CAIR claims to condemn terrorist attacks, it has not been able to specifically condemn Hamas suicide bombings or Hizballah bombings of civilian communities...CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad defiantly refused to criticize Hamas or Hizballah...
This is the leadership Holder is asked to meet. As reporter Mary Jacoby recently noted: CAIR "has been working to stoke tensions in local Muslim communities over FBI investigative tactics. CAIR is angry at the FBI, because the bureau embarrassed it. How? By cutting off contacts with CAIR's national leadership last year. Why did the bureau do that? Because evidence in a major terrorism-support prosecution in Texas showed CAIR's origins as a propaganda arm of Hamas." Indeed, a letter from an FBI congressional liaison states that the Bureau can't rule out an ongoing "connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS" and would cut off outreach communication with the group until it can....Many of the representatives who signed this letter have a history of supporting CAIR...(examples listed.)In their letter, the representatives accept the claims of defendants in two criminal cases unqustioningly, despite sworn testimony to the contrary... Ahmadullah Niazi, has been indicted on immigration charges....In sworn testimony during Niazi's bond hearing in February, FBI agent Thomas Ropel III said Niazi went to authorities only after learning of a separate terror-indictment involving an informant and collaborated with CAIR official Hussam Ayloush to accuse the informant of being the terrorist...Niazi claimed that he and the informant had discussed jihad once or twice, when agents already possessed "at least 15 to 20 such conversations."...exchange took place between Ropel and Magistrate Judge Arthur Nakazato: Agent Ropel: "We had discussed conducting terrorist attacks and blowing up buildings. We had discussed Mr. Niazi or anybody talking about sending money overseas and Mr. Niazi said none of those things were ever discussed between himself and this individual. And we had personally listened to recordings in which Mr. Niazi had instigated these conversations with that individual." Judge: "He instigated the conversations?" Agent Ropel: "Yes, Mr. Niazi did, specifically regarding these statements."...The informant issue raised in the letter...is "normal" to see informants in criminal investigations have felony records of their own, said Barry Sabin, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. (CAIR)...triggered a backlash from some members of the Minneapolis Somali community, who have repeatedly demonstrated against CAIR for, in their view, hindering law enforcement efforts to stop the recruitment of young men to return to the African nation to engage in jihad. At least 20 young men are believed to have traveled from Minneapolis to Somalia in the past year, with one killing himself in a suicide bombing attack. Three other young men from Minneapolis have been shot and killed in Somalia in the past two months....That the representatives would accept at face value the claims of an organization the FBI has concluded is not "an appropriate liaison partner" is disturbing. CAIR has documented roots in a U.S-based Hamas support network. Among secretly recorded wiretaps in evidence in the prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development are conversations including two CAIR founders about deceiving Americans about their political ambitions and the outright declaration that "war is deception." Before carrying their water again, the politicians may wish to find out whether the war ended.