CAIR officials convicted of jihad terror activity

It comes as no surprise, then, that several CAIR officials have been convicted of participating in violent jihad activities. Randall Todd (“Ismail”) Royer, CAIR’s former communications specialist and civil rights coordinator, participated in the “Virginia jihad group,” which was indicted on forty-one counts of “conspiracy to train for and participate in a violent jihad overseas.” Royer is now serving a twenty-year prison sentence after a plea bargain that had him pleading guilty to lesser charges.

Ghassan Elashi, the founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter, is likewise now in prison for jihad activity. In 2009, he was sentenced to sixty-five years in prison for funneling over $12 million in charitable contributions to Hamas while serving as head of the Holy Land Foundation. Other former CAIR officials have been convicted of jihad terror activities as well, raising the question of how this supposedly moderate group failed so abysmally to distinguish “moderates” from “extremists.”

CAIR itself was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. The organization not only facilitated donations to the Holy Land Foundation, but also received money from it – no less than half a million dollars. CAIR cofounder Nihad Awad vehemently denied this when terror researcher Steven Emerson confronted him: “This is an outright lie. Our organization did not receive any seed money from the Holy Land Foundation. CAIR raises its own funds and we challenge Mr. Emerson to provide even a shred of evidence to support his ridiculous claim.” Emerson then published an image of the canceled check.

Yet despite its connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, the terror convictions of several of its former officials, and its virtually unanimous opposition to counter-terror laws, investigations, and other initiatives, CAIR remains widely respected. Nearly everyone (particularly in Washington) assumes that it is exactly what it says it is: a Muslim civil rights organization, working for the rights of Muslims in the U.S. and deeply loyal to Constitutional principles and freedoms. The organization’s website features testimonials from congressmen and senators of both parties, as well as security and military officials, testifying to how the organization has surpassed even al-Qaeda financier and former leading Washington “moderate” Abdurrahman Alamoudi in its deceptiveness.

The foolish and wrongheaded support for CAIR cuts across all political and ideological lines. The CAIR website even carries a testimonial from Bill O’Reilly: “Number one, it’s not fair of to you criticize CAIR, OK? Because CAIR isn’t fostering any kind of jihad, as far as I know.”