Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) sent a letter to Bill Long, commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, asking the IRS to investigate the nonprofit status of the Council on American-Islamic Relations due to what he said are its ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
“CAIR purports to be a civil-rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of American Muslims, but substantial evidence confirms CAIR has deep ties to terrorist organizations,” the senator wrote on Monday. “In the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S. history, CAIR was listed as a member of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee.”
The federal government presented evidence in the trial that “revealed that CAIR’s founders participated in a meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia, where they discussed strategies to advance the Islamist agenda in America while concealing their true affiliations,” Cotton wrote. “Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right, and it should not subsidize organizations with links to terrorism.”
CAIR called Cotton’s claims “debunked conspiracy theories and half-baked legal arguments.”
“Is that the best you’ve got, Tom? We figured your handlers would have given you something better to work with,” it wrote.
CAIR blamed Israel for being attacked on Oct. 7, and the Biden administration removed it from the White House’s national strategy on antisemitism.
