CAIR Settles Lawsuit to Avoid Revealing Funding Sources

On 28 Feb­ru­ary 2025, The New York Post report­ed that the Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions (CAIR) had set­tled a law­suit rather than dis­close its for­eign fund­ing sources. The arti­cle begins:

A Wash­ing­ton-based Mus­lim non­prof­it, which is one of the largest oper­at­ing across the US, agreed this week to set­tle a case brought by a for­mer board mem­ber and employ­ee rather than open its books to reveal sources of for­eign fund­ing, The Post has learned. Evi­dence in past court pro­ceed­ings has shown links between The Coun­cil on Amer­i­can-Islam­ic Rela­tions Foun­da­tion Inc. and both Hamas and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood. CAIR Inc. set­tled with Lori Saroya Thurs­day, months after US Mag­is­trate Judge David Schultz ruled any assets owned by the group are all with­in the “scope of per­mis­si­ble dis­cov­ery” as part of the for­mer Min­neso­ta chap­ter leader’s law­suit against the con­tro­ver­sial Mus­lim rights group. Saroya filed her fed­er­al defama­tion com­plaint against CAIR last year after the group dropped a law­suit against her, which accused her of embark­ing on a “defama­tion cam­paign” against the orga­ni­za­tion. Law­mak­ers are demand­ing a fed­er­al inves­ti­ga­tion into the non­prof­it, which took in more than $5.3 mil­lion in con­tri­bu­tions and grants in 2022, the last year for which pub­lic fil­ings are avail­able. “CAIR’s lead­er­ship has a long his­to­ry of spew­ing vile anti­semitism and anti-Zion­ist rhetoric, includ­ing open­ly prais­ing the Hamas ter­ror­ists that bru­tal­ly attacked Israel, mur­der­ing, rap­ing, and kid­nap­ping more than 1,200 peo­ple on Octo­ber 7 [2023],” said Josh Got­theimer, a Demo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress­man from New Jersey…

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Key Points:

• CAIR set­tled with ex-board mem­ber Lori Saroya, avoid­ing court-ordered dis­clo­sure of for­eign fund­ing sources.
• Court evi­dence linked CAIR to Hamas and the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, rais­ing con­cerns among US lawmakers.
• Fol­low­ing CAIR’s exec­u­tive director’s con­tro­ver­sial remarks on Octo­ber 7, the Biden admin­is­tra­tion dis­tanced itself.
• Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers are call­ing for a fed­er­al probe into CAIR’s finances and alleged ties to extrem­ist groups.