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Rev. Al Shapton Keynote Speaker at CAIR Banquet
Reverend Al Sharpton, host of PoliticsNation on MSNBC and former presidential candidate, will be the keynote speaker at the annual fundraiser for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity with an extremist history.
CAIR’s 20th Annual Banquet will be held on September 27 in Arlington, Virginia and also features Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN).
According to the U.S. Justice Department, CAIR is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood. More specifically, CAIR is part of the Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, a secret body that was established to push the agenda of Hamas and the overall Islamist cause.
This is confirmed by Muslim Brotherhood documents.
A July 1994 Palestine Committee meeting agenda says attendees will discuss “future suggestions to develop the work of” CAIR. A 1991 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood memo lists CAIR’s predecessor, the Islamic Association for Palestine, as one of its fronts. Three of CAIR’s founders were leaders in that group.
In 2007, the Justice Department branded CAIR an unindicted co-conspirator in the trial of the Holy Land Foundation, another U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity found guilty of financing Hamas. The designation was upheld by a federal judge in 2009. The FBI subsequently ended its use of CAIR as an outreach partner, citing evidence linking it to Hamas.
In another terrorism trial in 2007, federal prosecutors stated in a court filing:
“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists … the conspirators agreed to use deception to conceal from the American public their connections to terrorists.”
The ongoing extremism of CAIR is evident in its suspicious money transfers, use of Islamist radicals for fundraising, defense of the Jamaat ul-Fuqra terrorist group and the statements of its chapter leaders. CAIR officials questioned whether to honor U.S. soldiers on Memorial Day (prompting outrage from other Muslims), compared the U.S. military to the Taliban and criticized American nationalism.
Sharpton previously spoke for CAIR’s 18th annual banquet on September 29, 2012. He said he was “honored” to be asked to speak for “one of the most important civil rights organizations in the United States today and that is CAIR.”
Speaking at the same event was Imam Siraj Wahhaj, as Clarion reported at the time. Wahhaj has a long and blunt history of extremism. The New York Police Department placed his mosque under surveillance due to evidence of terrorist activity.
In the early 1990s, he preached that the U.S. is “the most wicked government on the face of the earth” and a “garbage can” that he prays “crumbles.”
In 1992, he preached that, “If only Muslims were clever politically, they could take over the United States and replace its constitutional government with a caliphate. If we were united and strong, we’d elect our own emir and give allegiance to him.”
Wahhaj also preached that Muslims should prepare for violent jihad, lamented that “some Muslims have lost the desire to fight,” and said, “I will never tell people don’t be violent. That’s not the Islamic way.”
He moderated his preaching after 9/11, particularly as it relates to instituting Islamic sharia law. He said in 2011, “The trap we fall into is having a premature discussion about sharia when we are not there yet.”
In September 2013, the NYPD justified its surveillance of Wahhaj’s mosque, Masjid At Taqwa, by revealing evidence that it is connected to terrorism. Its court filing states:
“The NYPD’s investigation of certain individuals associated with Plaintiff Masjid At Taqwa was based upon information about their lengthy history of suspected criminal activity, some of it terroristic in nature. This information includes but is not limited to: illegal weapons trafficking by members of the mosque’s security team and the mosque caretaker both within the mosque and the store adjacent; illegal weapons trafficking by certain attendees of the mosque; allegations that the mosque ran a ‘gun club;’ and allegations that the assistant Imam had earmarked portions of over $200,000 raised in the mosque to a number of US Government-designated terrorist organizations.”
The NYPD also says that the mosque’s security team arranged paintball trips that included at least one convicted terrorist and the participants were referred to as “jihad warriors.” The security team has also learned how to disarm police officers and has held martial arts classes attended by convicted terrorists.
The host of a major cable news show does not belong at a CAIR fundraiser.
The Clarion Project has emailed MSNBC and Sharpton’s National Action Network and will post any response here.
Ryan Mauro is the ClarionProject.org’s national security analyst, a fellow with the Clarion Project and an adjunct professor of homeland security. Mauro is frequently interviewed on Fox News.
Copyright © 2013 Clarion Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
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