Category Archives: Libya Benghazi Muslim Brotherhood murder

Valerie Jarrett has Stepped up Islamic Protection

Posted on by

The Muslim organizations around the country have become a de-facto protected class and what is worse, the Obama administration is in full lock step to reciprocate the protections. The next huge question is exactly how does the White House know the names of all of them and the top leadership individual names and phone numbers to have a full call to action? (rhetorical)

A full court press, but not so much for the victims of militant jihad in America. Anymore questions about where the White House lays it true loyalty?

WashingtonExaminer: The White House on Monday began “staff-level” meetings and calls with religious leaders to discuss how they could help combat growing anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States.

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Obama, and Melissa Rogers, who leads the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, held a conference call with leaders of all religions from across the country.

“Spoke with 890+ religious leaders to thank them for speaking up for every American’s right to be free from religious discrimination,” Jarrett tweeted on Monday.

Administration officials “routinely” interact with religious leaders, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday, stressing that the latest round of talks is being led by staff members, not the president.

The call Jarrett led was a “conversation to discuss efforts to combat discrimination and highlight the need for welcoming all faiths and beliefs,” Earnest said. “It certainly seems a timely topic for a conversation like that,” he said, noting the uptick in anti-Muslim rhetoric since the radical Islamic terrorist group, the so-called Islamic State, launched deadly attacks in Paris and inspired a shooting spree in San Bernardino, Calif.

The “hateful, divisive” comments of a “handful of Republicans running for president is hurtful and dangerous” to the nation’s national security, Earnest said, presumably referring to candidates such as Donald Trump, who has proposed banning all Muslims from the U.S.

Also on Monday, Jarrett, Director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council Cecilia Munoz, and Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes are hosting a group of Muslim-American leaders at the White House, Earnest said.

And finally, Munoz is meeting with representatives of America’s Sikh community, Earnest said.

In addition to a massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012, hate crimes against Sikhs have spiked since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, often because attackers mistook Sikhism adherents for Muslims.

The White House is hosting similar meetings all week, including one on Thursday, Earnest said.

“Again these are all slated to be staff-level meetings but yet, are representative of the kind of ongoing dialogue that the White House maintains with religious leaders of all faiths all across the country,” Earnest said.

 

 

 

Kerry and Kremlin Decide Assad’s (terror) Future

Posted on by

AlArabiya: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will use talks in Moscow on Tuesday to try to narrow differences with Russian leader Vladimir Putin over the role of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in any political transition, a senior State Department official said on Monday.

He will seek to prepare the ground for a third round of talks of world powers on Syria amid doubts over whether a meeting pencilled in for Friday in New York will go ahead.

Russia’s foreign ministry said late on Monday that Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had agreed in a phone call on the need for specific preconditions to be met before any new meeting, throwing its timing into doubt.

Russia is one of Assad’s staunchest allies and launched a campaign of air strikes to support his forces against insurgents on Sept. 30. It says only the Syrian people and not external powers should decide his political fate.

So, John Kerry is cool with Assad staying in power for a long while it seems but this like Iran, does he care about the terror history of Bashir al Assad at all? Seems not.

In part from D. Greenfield at CounterJihadReport: Before the Islamic State’s current incarnation, it was Al Qaeda in Iraq and its pipeline of suicide bombers ran through Syria with the cooperation of Assad’s government.

Assad and Al Qaeda in Iraq had a common enemy; the United States. Assad had a plan to kill two birds with one stone. Syrian Islamists, who might cause trouble at home, were instead pointed at Iraq. Al Qaeda got manpower and Assad disposed of Sunni Jihadists who might cause him trouble.

Meanwhile Al Qaeda openly operated out of Syria in alliance with the Baathists. While Syria’s regime was Shiite and Iraq’s Sunni, both governments were headed by Baathists.

The Al Nusrah Front, the current incarnation of Al Qaeda in the area ever since the terror group began feuding with ISIS, named one of its training camps, the ‘Abu Ghadiya Camp”. Abu Ghadiya had been chosen by Zarqawi, the former leader of the organization today known as ISIS, to move terroriststhrough Syria. This highway of terror killed more American soldiers than Saddam Hussein had.

The Al Qaeda presence in Syria was backed by Assad’s brother-in-law,  Assef Shawkat, who had served as Director of Military Intelligence and Deputy Defense Minister.  His real job though was coordinating Islamic terrorist organizations. During the Iraq War, he added Al Qaeda to his portfolio.

Handling terrorists without being burned is a tricky business though and the blowback kicked in.

In 2008, a US raid into Syria finally took out Abu Ghadiya and some of his top people. A year later, General Petraeus warned that, “In time, these fighters will turn on their Syrian hosts and begin conducting attacks against Bashar al-Asad’s regime itself.”

Shawkat was killed by a suicide bomber three years later. Assad’s support for terrorists had hit home. Those Sunni Islamists he had sent on to Iraq who survived returned with training and skills that made them a grave danger to his regime.

Exactly as Petraeus had predicted.

Anti-American Leftists who claim that the US created ISIS were cheering on its early terror attacks as the work of a Baathist “Resistance”. ISIS these days is accompanied by top Baathists including General al-Douri, a close Saddam ally. The same outlets claiming that we created ISIS celebrated the “Resistance” campaign against NATO “neo-colonialism” when what they were really celebrating was ISIS.

Putin’s regime has claimed that it is fighting ISIS, but it was supporting Assad back when Syria was a conduit for ISIS to attack Americans. The Baathists in Syria and Iraq had both been Soviet clients and it was the USSR which turned international terrorism into a high art.

So how big is the Islamic State mess? Well it is active in several countries including Malaysia, China and Afghanistan. But to see the list of terror cockroaches:

So far 43 jihadi groups around the world  pledged support/allegiance to Islamic State

IntelCenter: Following the creation of the Islamic State (IS), Emir Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for jihadi groups around the world to pledge allegiance to IS. Below is the list of jihadi groups that have pledged allegiance/support as of 15 Dec. 2015.

SUPPORT/PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO IS
• al-I’tisam of the Koran and Sunnah [Sudan] – 1 Aug. 2014 – Support
• Abu Sayyaf Group [Philippines] – 25 Jun. 2014 – Support
• Ansar al-Khilafah [Philippines] – 14 Aug. 2014 – Allegiance
• Ansar al-Tawhid in India [India] – 4 Oct. 2014 – Allegiance
• Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) [Phillippines] – 13 Aug. 2014 – Support
• Bangsmoro Justice Movement (BJM) [Phillippines] – 11 Sep. 2014 – Support
• Jemaah Islamiyah [Philippines] 27 Apr. 2015 – Allegiance
• al-Huda Battalion in Maghreb of Islam [Algeria] – 30 Jun. 2014 – Allegiance
• The Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria [Algeria] – 30 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
• al-Ghurabaa [Algeria] – 7 Jul. 2015 – Allegiance
• Djamaat Houmat ad-Da’wa as-Salafiya (DHDS) [Algeria] 19 Sep. 2015 – Allegiance
• al-Ansar Battalion [Algeria] 4 Sep. 2015 – Allegiance
• Jundullah [Pakistan] – 17 Nov. 2014 – Support
• Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) [Pakistan/Uzbekistan] Video – 31 Jul. 2015 – Allegiance
• Tehreek-e-Khilafat [Pakistan] – 9 Jul. 2014 – Allegiance
• Leaders of the Mujahid in Khorasan (ten former TTP commanders) [Pakistan] – 10 Jan. 2015 – Allegiance
• Islamic Youth Shura Council [Libya] – 22 Jun. 2014 – Support
• Jaish al-Sahabah in the Levant [Syria] – 1 Jul. 2014 – Allegiance
• Martyrs of al-Yarmouk Brigade [Syria] – Dec. 2014 – Part of IS – Allegiance
• Faction of Katibat al-Imam Bukhari [Syria] – 29 Oct. 2014 – Allegiance
• Jamaat Ansar Bait al-Maqdis [Egypt] – 30 Jun. 2014 – Allegiance
• Jund al-Khilafah in Egypt [Egypt] – 23 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
• Liwa Ahrar al-Sunna in Baalbek [Lebanon] – 30 Jun. 2014 – Allegiance
• Islamic State Libya (Darnah) [Libya] – 9 Nov. 2014 – Allegiance
• Lions of Libya [Libya] (Unconfirmed) – 24 Sep. 2014 – [Support/Allegiance]
• Shura Council of Shabab al-Islam Darnah [Libya] – 6 Oct. 2014 – Allegiance
• Jemaah Anshorut Tauhid (JAT) [Indonesia] – Aug. 2014 – Allegiance
• Mujahideen Indonesia Timor (MIT) [Indonesia] – 1 Jul. 2014 – Allegiance
• Mujahideen Shura Council in the Environs of Jerusalem (MSCJ) [Egypt] – 1 Oct. 2014 – Support
• Okba Ibn Nafaa Battalion [Tunisia] – 20 Sep. 2014 – Support
• Jund al-Khilafah in Tunisia [Tunisia] – 31 Mar. 2015 – Allegiance
• Central Sector of Kabardino-Balakria of the Caucasus Emirate (CE) [Russia] – 26 Apr. 2015 – Allegiance
• Mujahideen of Tunisia of Kairouan [Tunisia] 18 May 2015 – Allegiance
• Mujahideen of Yemen [Yemen] – 10 Nov. 2014 – Allegiance
• Supporters for the Islamic State in Yemen [Yemen] – 4 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
• al-Tawheed Brigade in Khorasan [Afghanistan] – 23 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
• Heroes of Islam Brigade in Khorasan [Afghanistan] – 30 Sep. 2014 – Allegiance
• Supporters of the Islamic State in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques [Saudi Arabia] – 2 Dec. 2014 – Support
• Ansar al-Islam [Iraq] – 8 Jan. 2015 – Allegiance
• Boko Haram [Nigeria] – 7 Mar. 2015 – Allegiance
• The Nokhchico Wilayat of the Caucasus Emirate (CE) [Russia] – 15 Jun. 2015 – Allegiance
• al-Ansar Battalion [Algeria] – 4 Sep. 2015 – Allegiance
• al-Shabaab Jubba Region Cell Bashir Abu Numan [Somalia]- 7 Dec. 2015 – Allegiance

 

Islam by the Numbers, Video

Posted on by

By the Numbers is an honest and open discussion about Muslim opinions and demographics. Narrated by Raheel Raza, president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow, this short film is about the acceptance that radical Islam is a bigger problem than most politically correct governments and individuals are ready to admit. Is ISIS, the Islamic State, trying to penetrate the U.S. with the refugee influx? Are Muslims radicalized on U.S. soil? Are organizations such as CAIR, who purport to represent American Muslims accepting and liberal or radicalized with links to terror organizations?

It’s time to have your say, go to http://go.clarionproject.org/numbers-…

Facts on Militant Islam Infiltration in America

Posted on by

Early on in the jihad career of Usama bin Ladin, he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Table set, read on.

The Investigative Project is a stellar non-profit organization that researches and investigates all militant influence, groups and people in the United States.

IPT Exclusive: Witnesses Say CAIR’s Hamas/MB Links Cemented From Start

Like a good politician, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) repeatedly proves adept at inserting itself into national debates.

When presidential candidate Ben Carson said he could not support a Muslim president, CAIR gathered reporters to express outrage and call on Carson to drop out of the race. When a 14-year-old Texas boy was detained for bringing what he said was a homemade clock to school that a teacher feared might be a bomb, a CAIR official expressed outrage and sat by the boy’s side during news conferences and interviews.

And in the immediate aftermath of the Dec. 2 mass killings in San Bernardino by a radicalized Muslim man and his wife, CAIR called a news conference where its top Los Angeles official “unequivocally” condemned the killings.

CAIR’s aggressive approach, and a combination of media ignorance or laziness, generates uncritical television and newspaper stories throughout the country. This helps the organization reinforce its self-anointed and incorrect reputation as the voice for America’s roughly 2 million Muslims. CAIR is presented as a responsible, moderate organization.

But when cracks appear in that façade, journalists rarely rise to the occasion. Less than two days later, the same CAIR official who unequivocally condemned the San Bernardino killings appeared on CNN to blame “our foreign policy” for fueling radicalization that leads to such violence.

In blaming the United States for an attack by radical Islamists, CAIR- Los Angeles director Hussam Ayloush picked up talking points CAIR officials pushed in the wake of last month’s ISIS massacres in Paris. The aim is to keep the killers’ religious motivations out of any conversation.

“We are partly responsible,” Ayloush said about the United States. “Terrorism is a global problem, not a Muslim problem. And the solution has to be global. Everyone has a role in it.”

Anchor Chris Cuomo did not challenge this statement.

Such uncritical news coverage comes despite a well-documented record establishing CAIR’s own ties to terrorists. Internal Muslim Brotherhood records obtained by the FBI place CAIR and its founders at the core of a Brotherhood-created Hamas support network in the United States. It is a history so checkered that formal FBI policy since 2008 bars interaction with its officials except in criminal investigations.

On Thursday, CAIR legislative director Corey Saylor told the Wall Street Journal that the alleged Hamas ties were “put to rest by the Department of Justice in 2011 and now exists as an Internet story.”

This is a lie. Saylor knows that the FBI policy toward CAIR remains in effect, and it was publicly reaffirmed in 2013. And there simply is no way to “put to rest” the internal records admitted into evidence in 2008.

FBI records recently obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism further illustrate why CAIR merits closer scrutiny, rather than free air time, from the mainstream media. The records cement CAIR’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas from its very foundation, including disclosures about the only executive director CAIR has ever had – Nihad Awad.

Before he helped create CAIR 21 years ago, Awad moved from Dallas to Washington, D.C. “in order to represent Hamas,” an acquaintance said.

Awad’s co-founder Omar Ahmad sought the blessing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to proceed with the new political start-up. That approval went as far as getting the global Islamist movement’s blessing over CAIR’s bylaws.

These accounts came from separate sources, each of whom ran in the same Islamist circles as Awad and Ahmad, during interviews with the FBI in 2005 and in 2009-10. They were among more than 1,000 pages of FBI records released to the IPT, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The IPT sought records from the 2010 deportation of another CAIR official, former national board member Nabil Sadoun.

Sadoun’s deportation resulted at least in part from his “connections to HAMAS, HAMAS leader Mousa Abu Marzook, and HAMAS front organizations,” papers filed in Immigration Court show. Sadoun was a longtime CAIR national board member and served as president of the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA), the 1,013-page FOIA response shows.

“MAYA served as a conduit for money to HAMAS, through the HLF [Holy Land Foundation], and served as a forum where HAMAS could promote its ideology and recruit new members,” a February 2010 declaration filed in Sadoun’s deportation case said. He also made anti-Semitic statements and advocated for violent jihad during an interview in a MAYA publication. (For more on Sadoun, click here)

CAIR was uncharacteristically reticent when asked about Sadoun’s case in 2010. The group promotes itself as “arguably the most visible and public representative of the American Muslim community.” But questions about its connections to Hamas have dogged the organization for years. Those questions led the FBI to break off outreach contact with the group in 2008, with an associate director explaining, “until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”

CAIR’s Hamas connection is established by evidence FBI agents uncovered while investigating a Muslim Brotherhood controlled Hamas-support network in the United States. One document, coinciding with the group’s 1994 creation, places CAIR among the Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee” branches. A 1992 internal memo, “Islamic Action for Palestine,” explains that the Brotherhood’s guidance office and international Shura Council (governing board) created Palestine Committees throughout the world “whose job it is to make the Palestinian cause victorious and to support it with what it needs of media, money, men and all of that.”

Lest there be any confusion over who benefits from the committees’ efforts, the next paragraph is devoted to Hamas. “This Movement – which was bred in the bosom of the mother movement, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’ – restored hope and life to the Muslim nation and the notion that the flare of Jihad has not died out and that the banner of Islamic Jihad is still raised.”

CAIR officials have tried to ignore or minimize attention given to the evidence establishing the Hamas connections, or to dismiss critics who call attention to them – including the IPT – as anti-Muslim smear merchants.

Disclosures in the FOIA records the IPT obtained should be more difficult for CAIR to brush aside. They come from two former activists, both of whom were deeply involved in the same Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-support network.

Omar Ahmad and the Muslim Brotherhood

Omar Ahmad’s CAIR bio

The FOIA records include prosecution evidence accepted by the Immigration Court and used to find Sadoun deportable on a 21-count charging document. Among the records, an FBI agent’s sworn statement from February 2010 – just days before Sadoun’s scheduled deportation hearing – which described CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad (also known as Omar Yehia) as “one of the leaders of HAMAS.”

An FBI report from January 2005 summarizes an interview with a man who said he was “part of the Brotherhood for many years” in the United States. The FBI describes him in immigration court papers as “a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He provided a history of the Brotherhood in America, including a power struggle pitting members who wanted more autonomy from the International Muslim Brotherhood against those who favored “a direct and official relationship.”

During the mid-1980s, the FBI source became a member of the U.S. Brotherhood’s Majlis al Shura, or governing board, and he described its structure and operation during the 2005 interview. “The Palestine Committee was the largest and most powerful nationalistic committee within the Brotherhood at that time,” the FBI summary of the interview said.

The U.S. Palestine Committee, like all national chapters throughout the world, “report directly to the IMB [international Brotherhood]’s leadership,” an FBI declaration in the Sadoun case said. A chart included in the file shows Sadoun’s connections within the network, including CAIR.

According to the witness, the U.S. Brotherhood’s estimated 1,500 to 2,000 members unanimously supported the Palestinian intifada and saw Hamas as its leader. The group then created the Holy Land Foundation to be “the Brotherhood’s primary organization to support the Intifadah,” the FBI report of the 2005 interview said.

Other branches included a think tank called the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) and a propaganda outfit called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). UASR was created by Mousa Abu Marzook, a longtime Hamas political leader, along with Ahmed Yousef – later a Hamas spokesman in Gaza – and Nabil Sadoun, the longtime CAIR national board member.

UASR “published papers and books about Hamas,” the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in denying the Holy Land Foundation’s appeal.

The IAP served as the Palestine Committee’s media outlet, promoting Hamas attacks and even publishing the terrorist group’s anti-Semitic charter which calls for Israel’s annihilation. The IAP worked with the Holy Land Foundation and other groups on fundraising events with the money being routed to charities controlled by Hamas. In addition, Marzook routed more than $750,000 to the IAP between 1985 and 1992.

IAP published a booklet, “America’s Greatest Enemy: The Jew! and an Unholy Alliance!”

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad worked for the IAP immediately before launching CAIR.

Ahmad became Palestine Committee president after Marzook was deported from the United States, the FBI source said. He knew this because Ahmad “approached [name redacted] and asked the Brotherhood’s permission to start the CAIR organization.” Ahmad “requested the Brotherhood’s approval for CAIR’s by-laws, etc. YEHIA [Ahmad] wanted CAIR to work for all Muslim causes in the United States. The Brotherhood authorized the opening of CAIR because, unlike the HLF, it was not an organization that was concerned only about activities taking place in the Eastern part of the world.”

In 2010, reports surfaced that, after the successful prosecution of five former Holy Land Foundation officials for Hamas support, investigators proposed indicting Ahmad, the CAIR co-founder. That request was rejected by the Justice Department.

Information in the FOIA records, including the witness statements, offers new insight into why the investigators pushed for more.

During the Holy Land trial, evidence showed that Ahmad played a key role in organizing and leading a secret 1994 meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia. It was called in response to the 1993 Oslo Accords, which offered the potential for a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

The FBI recorded the weekend-long meeting. Transcripts entered into evidence show that the group opposed the deal for two reasons: They, like Hamas, opposed any peaceful settlement to the conflict. And, the agreement empowered the secular Palestine Liberation Organization to lead the newly created Palestinian Authority, diminishing the influence and power of the Islamist Hamas movement.

Ahmad helped determine who should attend the meeting and called it to order. At one point, he acknowledged that the group cannot afford to be honest with the public about their true ideology.

“We’ve always demanded the 1948 territories,” he said, referring to all of Israel and not just the West Bank and Gaza.

“Yes, but we don’t say that publicly,” an unidentified speaker said. “You cannot say it publicly, in front of the Americans.”

“No,” Ahmad replied. “We didn’t say that to the Americans.”

Nihad Awad and Hamas

Awad participated in that 1994 meeting, too, and joined the others in following instructions to refer to Hamas only in code. Those in the meeting were admonished not to say “Hamas,” but refer instead to “sister Samah” – or Hamas spelled backward.

“If there is a political issue, a Samah’s input, for instance, about this or that, we inform people to contact their representatives,” Awad said during the Philadelphia meeting.

Awad’s true mission was spelled out during a 2010 interview FBI officials had with Mohamed Shorbagi, a former Rome, Ga. imam who pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Hamas through donations and service to the Holy Land Foundation, and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, testifying twice for the government in Hamas-support cases.

Shorbagi remembered attending the 1994 Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) conference in Chicago where the Palestine Committee organized break-out sessions. Shorbagi attended a political group discussion with Nihad Awad. Awad, he was told, had been sent by the IAP to Washington “in order to educate and inform U.S. political leaders about the Palestinian cause. His job was to influence the leaders of the U.S. government in favor of the Palestinian cause,” an FBI memo summarizing the interview said.

Shorbagi had a different take: “The IAP’s only purpose was to support Hamas through media work. [Name redacted]’s job within the IAP was to work for and support Hamas and nothing else,” an FBI report from his 2009 interview said.

The head of the IAP in Dallas told Shorbagi that Awad “went to Washington, D.C. for the IAP in order to represent Hamas.” But then the idea to start CAIR came to fruition and Awad was tasked with running the new organization. “It was known in the community that CAIR was under or influenced by the IAP because its (CAIR) leadership had come from the IAP.”

The timing and the claim that Ahmad sent Awad to Washington fits with other information already in the public domain.

Awad’s own account of his move to Washington, in an article he wrote in 2000, offers a more benign motivation, but matches Shorbagi in saying it was Ahmad who “proposed that I move to Washington, D.C., where any effective national effort would have to be based.”

During a 2003 deposition in a civil lawsuit, Awad said he served as public relations chief for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) in 1993, then moved to Washington “to work for CAIR.” As mentioned, the IAP was the Palestine Committee’s media arm, publishing the Hamas charter and reproducing Hamas communiques. Awad denied knowledge of this fact and claimed he had never read the Hamas charter.

In the deposition, Awad described IAP merely as a “cultural association” and denied ever seeing or reading the Hamas charter. But Shorbagi told federal investigators that “IAP ‘festivals’ championed the cause of Hamas exclusively” after the intifada. This point is clearly established by video exhibits entered into evidence during the Holy Land Foundation trial.

In March 1994, Awad was part of a panel discussion at Miami’s Barry University. He said he used to support the PLO, but “after I researched the situation inside Palestine and outside, I am in support of the Hamas movement more than the PLO.” In the 2003 deposition, he claimed this was due to Hamas social services and not because of its violent attacks against Israel.

But in a November 1994 interview with “60 Minutes,” Mike Wallace asked Awad for his views of the “military undertakings of Hamas.”

“Well, I think that’s for people to judge there,” Awad said.

Wallace asked again.

“The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation to defend themselves against illegal occupation,” Awad said.

In addition to being the only executive director CAIR has had, Awad also serves as a national board member.

On social media posts a year ago, Awad argued that “Israel is the biggest threat to world peace and security,” making the statement between unrelated posts about acts of brutality committed by ISIS terrorists. Since then, other senior CAIR officials have issued their own Twitter posts arguing Israel is on par with ISIS.

Hamas officials in Gaza have taken notice of Shorbagi’s cooperation with the government. They were holding his passport, his father told him, “because the Holy Land Foundation received stiff prison sentences because of [Shorbagi]’s testimony on behalf of the U.S. Government. [Shorbagi]’s family warned him not to return to Gaza even for a few minutes.”

*** Ah, but there is more and if you can stand to know more truths on Muslim Organizations in America, click here. FOIA Exposes Deported CAIR Official’s Support for Jihad

More Hillary Emails are Missing Regarding her Server

Posted on by

State Department can’t find emails of top Clinton IT staffer

The FBI has taken possession of Bryan Pagliano’s computer system.

Politico: The State Department has told Senate investigators it cannot find backup copies of emails sent by Bryan Pagliano, the top Hillary Clinton IT staffer who maintained her email server but has asserted his Fifth Amendment right and refused to answer questions on the matter.

State officials told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a recent closed-door meeting that they could not locate what’s known as a “.pst file” for Pagliano’s work during Clinton’s tenure, which would have included copies of the tech expert’s emails, according to a letter Chairman Chuck Grassley sent to Secretary of State John Kerry that was obtained by POLITICO.

The department also told the committee the FBI has taken possession of Pagliano’s government computer system, where traces of the messages are most likely to be found, according to the letter.

Grassley, an Iowa Republican, has been considering whether to grant Pagliano immunity in exchange for testimony on who approved Clinton’s private email setup and whether anyone raised any objections to the system. The controversy over her decision to bypass a government email address, which would have made her messages easier for reporters and the public to obtain, has dogged the presidential hopeful for much of the year, though it has subsided in recent weeks.

Pagliano — who worked for Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign, then followed her to the State Department — has refused to discuss Clinton’s email arrangement or his role in it, invoking his right against self-incrimination before the House Benghazi Committee earlier this fall.

Clinton had personally paid Pagliano to maintain her home-made server, which is also currently in the FBI’s possession. The agency has been investigating whether classified material was ever put at risk because she used her own server instead of the standard State email system. The State Department has designated about 1,000 of her emails as classified documents, which would never have been allowed on such a private system. Clinton’s representatives maintain that the emails were not classified at the time they were sent.

Pagliano’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.

Grassley had requested Pagliano’s emails to help inform his decision whether to grant Pagliano immunity.

“Given that the committee is unable to obtain [Pagliano’s] testimony at this time, I am seeking copies of his official State Department emails relevant to the Committee’s inquiry before proceeding to consider whether it might be appropriate to grant him immunity and compel his testimony,” Grassley’s letter states. It notes that such emails are a “top priority” in a list of several outstanding Clinton-related inquiries the panel has sent to the department.

The State Department said that while it has located a backup for emails Pagliano sent after Clinton left State, officials cannot find the file for the backup covering work he did while she was still there.

“The Department has located a .pst from Mr. Pagliano’s recent work at the Department as a contractor, but the files are from after Secretary Clinton left the State Department. We have not yet located a .pst that covers the time period of Secretary Clinton’s tenure,” said Alec Gerlach, a State Department spokesman. “We are continuing to search for Mr. Pagliano’s emails which the Department may have otherwise retained. We will, of course, share emails responsive to Senator Grassley’s requests if we locate them.”

State, like many federal agencies, did not have a systematic email archiving system for years. When the server issue first arose in the spring, State acknowledged that it did not automatically archive the email traffic of senior employees — relying on them to make their own backups, or “.pst,” if needed. Under current rules, federal employees are responsible for ensuring their official emails are saved.

State has not asked Pagliano whether he has any official emails in his possession, as it has with other top Clinton staffers who used personal email for work. It is unclear if Pagliano’s Fifth Amendment rights would protect him from turning over such messages.

Grassley encouraged State to continue searching for Pagliano’s emails by looking at the back-up email files of other State employees he may have emailed about the Clinton server. He letter seeks “a full and detailed written explanation of why it failed to maintain an archive, copy, or backup of Mr. Pagliano’s email file,” among other requests related to the IT staffer’s emails.

While State hasn’t been able to meet Grassley’s requests so far, his letter did offer some rare praise for the department, commending Kerry and State for what Grassley called a “recent increase in cooperation and focus on the committee’s request.” The letter says Judiciary has prioritized 22 requests for information and received seven “fully complete responses” and nine “partially complete responses.”

And State, which has been bombarded by inquiries about Clinton’s email setup, seems to appreciate the recognition: “As Senator Grassley noted, the State Department has been working very closely with his staff to get him the requested information and documents, and we are making progress,” Gerlach added.

Grassley had been blocking the confirmation of about 20 of State’s Foreign Service nominees because the department hadn’t fulfilled various document requests, including those for another probe he’s conducting on the dual-employment status of top Clinton adviser Huma Abedin. Abedin advised Clinton while she was also working for a consulting company; Grassley has been asking for information about the arrangement since 2013.

Given State’s recent responsiveness, however, he recently dropped the 20 holds but maintained a block on two more high-level nominees: Brian James Egan to be a State legal adviser and David Malcolm Robinson to be assistant secretary for conflict and stabilization operations and coordinator for reconstruction and stabilization. In November, Grassley also added a third hold on another top-level Obama State Department nominee, Thomas Shannon Jr., to be undersecretary of state for political affairs.

Grassley in his recent letter, however, hinted that if State continues working with his committee at the current pace, he could be amenable to releasing his holds.

“Assuming the committee receives the additional items promised by your staff in yesterday’s meeting, I intend to take action to recognize this progress before Senators leave town for the holiday break,” he said, nodding specifically to any copies of Pagliano emails they could discover by searching other employee’s emails.