Audrey Hudson reports today that CAIR (the Council of American-Islamic Relations) is complaining that their membership is down. They are blaming it on the Department of Justice and the Washington Times’ reporting:
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says it’s suffering a decline in membership and fundraising and blames the Justice Department for listing it as an unindicted co-conspirator in a Texas case against a charity accused of ties to terrorists.
CAIR asked a U.S. District Court in Dallas to strike it from the list of more than 300 other Muslim groups named as unindicted co-conspirators in the government’s case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. The case is being tried 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 as evidence of the organization’s declining membership. When this account of declining CAIR membership was published in The Times earlier this summer, CAIR denounced it 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 the benefit of 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 accuses 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 before U.S. District Judge A. Joe Fish.
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The CAIR brief says “the amount of donations” to CAIR “has dwindled well below their monthly budget and as their associational activity necessarily relies upon donations from the public, the government’s labeling of them as an unindicted co-conspirator has chilled their associational activity.”
While being named an unindicted co-conspirator is a criminal case against an organization accused of raising money for terrorist might explain declining membership and donations, here are a few other things that may also have contributed to CAIR’s decline:
CAIR also sued on behalf of 9/11 dry run terrorists
CAIR plans to interfere in Iraq
CAIR leader knows “violent jihadist”
CAIR and 6 imams need mirror to find bigots
That is not a full list, just a few things for CAIR to consider.
