Attorney General Eric Holder amplified President Obama’s historic speech to the Muslim world in Cairo today with a pledge to vigorously enforce U.S. Muslims’ civil rights. What he didn’t mention: The DOJ is under heavy attack by Muslim-American activists after the Federal Bureau of Investigation cut off contacts with a prominent advocacy organization linked to Hamas.
In a statementissued this afternoon, Holder said:
“The President’s pledge for a new beginning between the United States and the Muslim community takes root here in the Justice Department where we are committed to using criminal and civil rights laws to protect Muslim Americans.
At the same time, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) has been on the warpath against the FBI since January, when it was revealed that the Bureau had ended outreach contacts with the Muslim group over its leaders’ ties to Hamas. See our previous coverage here.
Since 9/11, the FBI had been working closely with CAIR to address civil rights violations against Muslim Americans. But evidence introduced in a major terrorism-support prosecution in Texas against officials of an Islamic charity, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, showed that CAIR’s founders were part of a Hamas support network. Hamas is a designated foreign terrorist organization. Holy Land’s two top officials were sentencedto 65 years in prison last week.
In addition, other Muslim groups are targetingEastern District of Virginia Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg for his criminal contempt prosecution of a confessed Palestinian Islamic Jihad supporter who refused to comply with a grand jury subpoena.
Since news of the FBI cutoff, CAIR has made the Bureau its enemy number one. See this story in the Los Angeles Times about Muslims in California accusing the Bureau of infiltrating their mosques. Or this news releaseby CAIR claiming the FBI used financial inducement to get an informant to snitch on an alleged plot to bomb a New York synagogue.
FBI Director Rober Mueller had to address the controvery before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 25. He said the FBI thinks very carefully before sending informants into religious institutions:
“I will say that we do not focus on institutions, we focus on individuals. And I will say generally if there is evidence or information as to individual or individuals undertaking illegal activities in religious institutions, with appropriate high-level approval, we would undertake investigative activities, regardless of the religion.”
It also touted the Department’s efforts to fight discriminatory violence, including bringing federal charges against 48 defendants (resulting in 41 convictions) and helping state and local authorities bring more than 160 -crime prosecutions since 9/11. One of the more violent cases was Dr. Robert Goldstein, who was sentenced to 151 months in prison for conspiring to bomb a mosque in Seminole, Florida. The Department said it has also engaged with the Muslim community through meetings with organizations and the deployment of conflict resolution specialists.