The largest Muslim charity in the US should be investigated by the IRS over alleged ties to terrorist organizations and potentially stripped of its tax exempt status, according to one US senator.
The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) took in more than $26 million between two of its richest chapters in Washington DC and California in 2023, according to its most recent federal tax filings, but there are significant concerns about where that money goes.
“CAIR purports to be a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of American Muslims,” claimed Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) in an August 4 letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long.
“But substantial evidence confirms CAIR has deep ties to terrorist organizations.”
Cotton told The Post Wednesday “CAIR’s deep ties to terrorist groups…should prevent them from maintaining nonprofit status. The status is a privilege not a right.”
In November 2023, weeks after the Oct.7 Hamas attacks on Israel, CAIR co-founder and national director Nihad Awad said that he was “happy to see” Palestinians “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land” during the terrorist attack that left 1,200 Jewish people dead. He later said his statement had been taken out of context.
CAIR denied the claims, saying: “Tom Cotton’s baseless demand that the IRS target a nonprofit organization based on debunked conspiracy theories is an un-American political stunt,” in a statement to The Post.
“The truth is that CAIR is an independent American civil rights organization.”
The charity was founded in Washington DC in 1993 and was linked to Hamas in 2008 when US authorities successfully prosecuted five leaders at the Holy Land Foundation For Relief and Development, a now-defunct Texas-based nonprofit, for giving more than $12 million donated in the US to the terror group.
The lawsuit was the largest terrorism-financing case in US history.
Cotton referenced the same lawsuit in his letter. He noted CAIR was listed in federal court papers as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee, and that the trial revealed CAIR’s founders had participated in a meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia, “where they discussed the Islamist agenda in America while concealing their true affiliations,” the letter claimed.
In addition, The Post revealed in March a significant amount of cash pledged to the group has allegedly gone missing, according to a watchdog group who sent a complaint to the Department of Justice in March.
According to the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based, non-partisan advocacy group, the money was given to a CAIR chapter in Los Angeles to help re-settle impoverished immigrants in California between 2022 and 2024.
In what appears to be a sleight of hand, the money – $7,217,968 — was sent to CAIR-Greater Los Angeles and not to CAIR-CA, which was the only group eligible to receive it, according to the complaint.
In his letter to the IRS, Cotton also said he wants the agency to probe whether the charity is fulfilling its charitable purpose.
Nonprofits do not pay tax on the donations and grants that they receive, under code 501(c)(3) of the US Internal Revenue Code.
“The IRS has broad authority to examine whether an entity’s operations align with its exempt purpose,” said Cotton. “Tax-exempt status … should not subsidize organizations with links to terrorism.”
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