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A controversial Muslim lobby group tied to a major terrorist-financing scheme is attempting to file a third amended complaint in its lawsuit against a father and son who documented the group’s links to worldwide jihad through a six-month undercover operation.
The new proposed complaint asks federal Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to add as a defendant lawyer David Yerushalmi, a prominent advocate of efforts to curb the influence of Islamic law in the U.S.
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As WND reported in June, after more than a year of consideration, Kollar-Kotelly granted CAIR’s request to file two amended complaints against former federal agent P. David Gaubatz and his son, Chris Gaubatz.
In the latest proposed complaint, CAIR argues Yerushalmi and his group, Society of Americans for National Existence, should be included in the suit based on the discovery of new information. The Islamic group contends Yerushalmi guided the Gaubatzes efforts to get inside information from CAIR, entering into written agreements “that evince a conspiracy to commit fraud and misappropriation.”
CAIR’s Minnesota chapter declared victory Monday when a Minnesota lawmaker dropped an anti-Shariah bill based on legislative language crafted by Yerushalmi. The proposal was dropped after CAIR held a news conference earlier in the day to “challenge the threat to religious freedom posed by the bill.” CAIR’s national office released a “community toolkit” last week that includes background on Yerushalmi.
CAIR Minnesota’s news release called Yerushalmi “the anti-Islam extremist who authored the template for the anti-Sharia bills.”
Yerushalmi’s attorney, Robert Muise, told WND that CAIR will “have an uphill battle to amend the pleadings for yet a third time” and add Yerushalmi’s name.
“These claims are without merit, and we’re going to continue to fight them, including fighting their effort to even name David as a defendant in this case,” Muise said.
Muise noted he already has a pending motion to dismiss filed with Judge Kollar-Kotelly, “and we’re not to far off from filing a motion for summary judgment as well.”
Already named in the complaint along with the Gaubatzes are the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Security Policy and three of its employees, Christine Brim, Adam Savit and Sarah Pavlis.
CAIR alleges it suffered damage after the younger Gaubatz, posing as an intern, obtained access to some 12,000 pages of CAIR internal documents under false pretenses and made recordings of officials and employees without consent.
Many of the documents were cited in a book David Gaubatz co-authored with Paul Sperry, “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America.” The book presents evidence for the Islamic group’s link to radical jihad, recounting its origin as a front group for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, the worldwide movement that has stated its intent to transform the U.S. into a Saudi-style Islamic state.
 CAIR’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., three blocks from the capitol building. |
In the lawsuit, however, CAIR, a self-described Muslim civil-rights group, does not defend itself against the book’s claims, and the FBI has seized the CAIR material from the Washington law office of one of the Gaubtazes’ three high-profile lawyers. A previous filing in the case revealed a federal grand jury is investigating CAIR for possible violation of laws that ban financial dealings with terrorist groups or countries under U.S. sanctions.
In her opinion last June, Judge Kollar-Kotelly granted part of the Gaubatzes’ motion to dismiss the case, throwing out the count pertaining to the audio and video recordings but maintaining other counts, including theft of physical documents.
Gaubatz attorney Martin Garbus told WND at the time that he “would rather have seen the entire case dismissed at this point, but I believe it will be dismissed at the next point.”
Garbus, a renowned First Amendment lawyer who has handled many high-profile cases over the past four decades, said he thinks the Gaubatzes have a valid First Amendment argument and that CAIR didn’t suffer any financial damage.
“They haven’t shown that they have been damaged by those documents,” he said.
Garbus said the judge has essentially directed that the case go ahead with discovery and testimony until she can evaluate the defendants’ arguments.
There won’t necessarily be a trial, he said.
CAIR previously attempted to file its initial amended complaint without court approval. Kollar-Kotelly reversed the filing and ordered CAIR to file a motion to explain why it should be allowed to amend.
In the proposed third amendment, CAIR also wants to add claims of fraud and misappropriation of trade secrets against all defendants. The complaint narrows the scope of the damages CAIR seeks, eliminating recompense for lost donations and diminished political contacts.
As WND reported, CAIR’s complaint seeks to expunge all copies of “Muslim Mafia,” in an attempt, according to Gaubatz lawyer Daniel Horowitz, to eliminate evidence that could lead to criminal prosecution of the group.
In May 2007, CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the Justice Department’s terror-finance case against the Richardson, Texas-based Holy Land Foundation, which was convicted of funneling more than $12 million to Hamas.
As “Muslim Mafia” recounts, FBI wiretap evidence from the Holy Land case showed CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad was at an October 1993 meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in Philadelphia. CAIR was born out of a need to give a “media twinkle” to the Muslim leaders’ agenda of supporting violent jihad abroad while slowly institutionalizing Islamic law at home.
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Horowitz has argued that CAIR’s complaint does not explicitly list any damages done to the organization by “Muslim Mafia.”
In a reply to the Gaubatzes’ opposition to CAIR’s initial motion to amend, CAIR lawyer Daniel Marino contended the gathering and publication of CAIR’s documents was not protected under the First Amendment.
Marino argued the First Amendment “does not privilege someone to steal valuable nonpublic information such as trade secrets, proprietary data, or privileged materials and, having so stolen it, to disclose it and thereby impair the value it had by virtue of its confidentiality.”
Horowitz has conceded CAIR might have a valid lawsuit if, for example, the items taken were a pirate treasure map, “and I took the treasure map and published it and somebody else got the gold first.”
“But if they’re Hamas, and we find documents that they support terrorism and fund cop-killers with civil-rights money, then the harm that’s caused them is damage to their reputation,” he said in a previous interview.
CAIR can’t sue anyone who claims it supports terrorism unless the claim is not true, Horowitz explained.
Horowitz has noted that normally, if a party believes a book is deliberately false, it will sue for defamation.
“Truth is a defense,” he said, “and we have always been willing to debate CAIR in a public forum or in the courts on these issues.”
Rogues gallery of terror-tied CAIR leaders
As former FBI agent Mike Rolf acknowledges in “Muslim Mafia,” “CAIR has had a number of people in positions of power within the organization that have been directly connected to terrorism and have either been prosecuted or thrown out of the country.” According to another FBI veteran familiar with recent and ongoing cases involving CAIR officials, “Their offices have been a turnstile for terrorists and their supporters.”
A review of the public record, including federal criminal court documents, past IRS 990 tax records and Federal Election Commission records detailing donor occupations, reveals that CAIR has been associated with a disturbing number of convicted terrorists or felons in terrorism probes, as well as suspected terrorists and active targets of terrorism investigations. The list is long and includes:
 FBI agents arresting CAIR founding director Ghassan Elashi in 2002. |
- Ghassan Elashi: One of CAIR’s founding directors, he was convicted in 2004 of illegally shipping high-tech goods to terror state Syria and is serving 80 months in prison. He was also convicted of providing material support to Hamas in the Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial. He was chairman of the charity, which provided seed capital to CAIR. Elashi is related to Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook.
- Muthanna al-Hanooti: The CAIR director’s home was raided in 2006 by FBI agents in connection with an active terrorism investigation. Agents also searched the offices of his advocacy group, Focus on Advocacy and Advancement of International Relations, which al-Hanooti operates out of Dearborn, Mich., and Washington, D.C.Al-Hanooti, who emigrated to the U.S. from Iraq, formerly helped run a suspected Hamas terror front called LIFE for Relief and Development. Its Michigan offices also were raided in September 2006. In 2004, LIFE’s Baghdad office was raided by U.S. troops, who seized files and computers. Al-Hanooti is related to Sheik Mohammed al-Hanooti, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
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Muthanna al-Hanooti, wearing traditional headgarb“Al-Hanooti collected over $6 million for support of Hamas,” according to a 2001 FBI report, and was present with CAIR and Holy Land officials at a secret Hamas fundraising summit held in 1993 at a Philadelphia hotel. Prosecutors added his name to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case.Although Al-Hanooti denies supporting Hamas, he has praised Palestinian suicide bombers as “martyrs” who are “alive in the eyes of Allah.” - Abdurahman Alamoudi: Another CAIR director, he is serving 23 years in federal prison for plotting terrorism. Alamoudi, who was caught on tape complaining that bin Laden hadn’t killed enough Americans in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, was one of al-Qaida’s top fundraisers in America, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.
- Siraj Wahhaj: A member of CAIR’s board of advisers, Wahhaj was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. The radical Brooklyn imam was close to convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and defended him during his trial.
Imam Siraj Wahhaj“Muslim Mafia,” citing co-author’s Sperry’s previous book “Infiltration” as well as terror expert Steven Emerson’s research, reports that Wahhaj, a black convert to Islam, is converting gang members to Islam and holding “jihad camps” for them. With a combination of Islam and Uzis, he has said, the street thugs will be a powerful force for Islam the day America “will crumble.”Wahhaj was a key speaker at CAIR’s 15th annual fund-raising banquet in Arlington, Va., in 2009. - Randall “Ismail” Royer: The former CAIR communications specialist and civil-rights coordinator is serving 20 years in prison in connection with the Virginia Jihad Network, which he led while employed by CAIR at its Washington headquarters. The group trained to kill U.S. soldiers overseas, cased the FBI headquarters and cheered the space shuttle Columbia tragedy. Al-Qaida operative Ahmed Abu Ali, convicted of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush, was among those who trained with Royer’s Northern Virginia cell.
- Bassam Khafagi: Another CAIR official, Khafagi was arrested in 2003 while serving as CAIR’s director of community affairs. He pleaded guilty to charges of bank and visa fraud stemming from a federal counter-terror probe of his leadership role in the Islamic Assembly of North America, which has supported al-Qaida and advocated suicide attacks on America. He was sentenced to 10 months in prison and deported to his native Egypt.
- Laura Jaghlit: A civil-rights coordinator for CAIR, her Washington-area home was raided by federal agents after 9/11 as part of an investigation into terrorist financing, money laundering and tax fraud. Her husband Mohammed Jaghlit, a key leader in the Saudi-backed SAAR network, is a target of the still-active probe.Jaghlit sent two letters accompanying donations – one for $10,000, the other for $5,000 – from the SAAR Foundation to Sami al-Arian, now a convicted terrorist. In each letter, according to a federal affidavit, “Jaghlit instructed al-Arian not to disclose the contribution publicly or to the media.”Investigators suspect the funds were intended for Palestinian terrorists via a U.S. front called WISE, which at the time employed an official who personally delivered a satellite phone battery to Osama bin Laden. The same official also worked for Jaghlit’s group.In addition, Jaghlit donated a total of $37,200 to the Holy Land Foundation, which prosecutors say is a Hamas front. Jaghlit subsequently was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the case.
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Nihad Awad - Nihad Awad: Wiretap evidence from the Holy Land case puts CAIR’s executive director at the Philadelphia meeting of Hamas leaders and activists in 1993 that was secretly recorded by the FBI. Participants hatched a plot to disguise payments to Hamas terrorists as charitable giving.During the meeting, according to FBI transcripts, Awad was recorded discussing the propaganda effort. He mentions Ghassan Dahduli, whom he worked with at the time at the Islamic Association for Palestine, another Hamas front. Both were IAP officers. Dahduli’s name also was listed in the address book of bin Laden’s personal secretary, Wadi al-Hage, who is serving a life sentence in prison for his role in the U.S. embassy bombings. Dahduli, an ethnic-Palestinian like Awad, was deported to Jordan after 9/11 for refusing to cooperate in the terror investigation. (An April 28, 2009, letter from FBI assistant director Richard C. Powers to Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz. – which singles out CAIR chief Awad for suspicion – explains how the group’s many Hamas connections caused the FBI to sever ties with CAIR.)Awad’s and Dahduli’s phone numbers are listed in a Muslim Brotherhood document seized by federal investigators revealing “important phone numbers” for the “Palestine Section” of the Brotherhood in America. The court exhibit showed Hamas fugitive Mousa Abu Marzook listed on the same page with Awad.
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Omar Ahmad - Omar Ahmad: U.S. prosecutors also named CAIR’s founder and chairman emeritus as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Ahmad, too, was placed at the Philadelphia meeting, FBI special agent Lara Burns testified at the trial. Prosecutors also designated him as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee” in America. Ahmad, like his CAIR partner Awad, is ethnic-Palestinian.(Though both Ahmad and Awad were senior leaders of IAP, the Hamas front, neither of their biographical sketches posted on CAIR’s website mentions their IAP past.)
Nabil Sadoun - Nabil Sadoun: A CAIR board member, Sadoun has served on the board of the United Association for Studies and Research, which investigators believe to be a key Hamas front in America. In fact, Sadoun co-founded UASR with Hamas leader Marzook. The Justice Department added UASR to the list of unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land case. UPDATE: In 2010, Sadoun was ordered deported to his native Jordan. An immigration judge referenced Sadoun’s relationship with Hamas and the Holy Land Foundation during a deportation hearing.
- Mohamed Nimer: CAIR’s research director also served as a board director for UASR, the strategic arm for Hamas in the U.S. CAIR neglects to mention Nimer’s and Sadoun’s roles in UASR in their bios.
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Mohamed Nimer - Rafeeq Jaber: A founding director of CAIR, Jaber was the long-time president of the Islamic Association for Palestine. In 2002, a federal judge found that “the Islamic Association for Palestine has acted in support of Hamas.” In his capacity as IAP chief, Jaber praised Hezbollah attacks on Israel. He also served on the board of a radical mosque in the Chicago area.
- Rabith Hadid: The CAIR fundraiser was a founder of the Global Relief Foundation, which after 9/11 was blacklisted by the Treasury Department for financing al-Qaida and other terror groups. Its assets were frozen in December 2001. Hadid was arrested on terror-related charges and deported to Lebanon in 2003.
- Hamza Yusuf: The FBI investigated the CAIR board member after 9/11, because just two days before the attacks, he made an ominous prediction to a Muslim audience.”This country is facing a terrible fate, and the reason for that is because this country stands condemned,” Yusuf warned. “It stands condemned like Europe stood condemned because of what it did. And lest people forget, Europe suffered two world wars after conquering the Muslim lands.”
CAIR’s founder Ahmad, while claiming to be a moderate and patriotic American, reportedly told a group of Muslims in Northern California in 1998 that they are in America not to assimilate, but to help assert Islam’s rule over the country.
“Islam isn’t in America to be equal to any other faith, but to become dominant,” a local reporter paraphrased him as saying. “The Quran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth.”
Ahmad insists he was misquoted. However, the reporter stands by her story, and an FBI wiretap transcript quotes Ahmad agreeing with terrorist suspects gathered at the secret Philadelphia meeting to “camouflage” their true intentions.
He compared it to the head fake in basketball.
“This is like one who plays basketball: He makes a player believe that he is doing this, while he does something else,” Ahmad said. “I agree with you. Like they say, politics is a completion of war.”
Hooper, CAIR’s communications director, also has expressed a desire to overturn the U.S. system of government in favor of an Islamic state.
“I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future,” Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education.”
IMPORTANT NOTE: The CAIR legal attack on WND’s author is far from over. WND needs your help in supporting the defense of “Muslim Mafia” co-author P. David Gaubatz, as well as his investigator son Chris, against CAIR’s lawsuit. The book’s revelations have led to formal congressional demands for three different federal investigations of CAIR. In the meantime, however, someone has to defend these two courageous investigators who have, at great personal risk, revealed so much about this dangerous group. Although WND has procured the best First Amendment attorneys in the country for their defense, we can’t do it without your help. Pleasedonate to WND’s Legal Defense Fund now.
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