Islamic Advocacy Group C.A.I.R. Must Turn Over Donor Lists, Federal Court Rules
Court: CAIR must produce the names of donors of $5,000 or more and contributions by “any individual or entity within … Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Kuwait.”
The Islamic advocacy group CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) must disclose the sources of its funding, a federal district court has ruled in a defamation case against the organization.
The lawsuit was brought by Lori Saroya, a former chapter head and employee at CAIR, who resigned in 2018. After she left, Saroya took to the internet, the court filing says, in social media posts accusing CAIR of creating a hostile work environment and financial mismanagement.
CAIR first sued Saroya for defamation over those online accusations in 2021, alleging they “falsely implied CAIR received funding from foreign governments and terrorists.” It later voluntarily dismissed its lawsuit in 2022. But the legal dispute between the parties didn’t end there.
Rather than leave well enough alone, CAIR renewed the hostilities less than 10 days later in a press release suggesting it had won its case against Saroya on the merits. It said she was using lawfare to “demand the names of CAIR supporters who have donated to us,” and accused her of “cyberstalking,” a state and federal crime, the court noted this week.
That press release turned the tables. Now Saroya is suing CAIR for defamation over its accusations. And unlike CAIR’s earlier lawsuit, this one has legs.
As a nonprofit organization, CAIR isn’t ordinarily required to reveal its donors’ identities. But Saroya’s claims bring that information within the scope of discovery, federal Magistrate Judge David Schultz ruled this week. Saroya alleges “eyebrow-raising financial mismanagement” in the lawsuit, including “hiding from its own Board the sources, nature and magnitude of massive foreign funding of CAIR.”
In its order granting her sweeping request for discovery, the court required CAIR to turn over the names of donors of $5,000 or more from 2014 through 2022, and documents showing contributions by “any individual or entity within, or any governmental unit of, Saudi Arabia, Qatar or Kuwait between 2007 and 2014.”
That broad ruling, the court said, was “a self-inflicted wound occasioned by its own press release. In commenting on the merits of the 2021 lawsuit in the manner in which it did, CAIR resuscitated the very issues that had just been laid to rest.”
“CAIR’s press release has opened the door to litigating—and thus discovering—the merits of the 2021 litigation,” Judge Schultz wrote on Monday.
While it holds itself out as a Muslim civil rights organization, CAIR has long been accused of sympathizing with Islamic terror, including Hamas, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Last year, CAIR executive director Nihad Awad celebrated Hamas’s October 7 attacks against Israel at an event for American Muslims for Palestine: “I was happy to see people breaking the siege…the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense,” he said.
In an interview with The Post, Saroya’s lawyer, Jeffrey Robbins, described Monday’s ruling as “the mother of all legal boomerangs”: “It will force CAIR to ‘turn over evidence about everything from fundraising practices, such as having raised money from foreign sources and concealed it; whether it deceived donors; whether it mismanaged donor money; whether it retaliated against employees or threatened to retaliate against employees for raising concerns about sexual harassment or the like,’ he told the paper.
Meanwhile, although the court hasn’t set a deadline for discovery, it has scheduled a settlement conference for early next year. Now that it’s under order to open its books, CAIR could decide to settle—and close the case, only this time for good.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
That broad ruling, the court said, was “a self-inflicted wound occasioned by its own press release. In commenting on the merits of the 2021 lawsuit in the manner in which it did, CAIR resuscitated the very issues that had just been laid to rest.”
‘It’s a schadenfreude-ilicious thanksgiving!,” Charlie Brown.
Hopefully, damages will be so high that CAIR is liquidated, one way or another.
Incoming AG Pam Bondi will take an interest in this discovery.
No matter when in time, no matter where in the world, here’s one of life’s constants – Find Muslims, find trouble,
Careful. There’s a cohort here who loves to inform us that Trump will lose the support of Muslims and Independents, and thus lose the election to Harris because many of us don’t buy into the canard that Muslims practice the Religion of Piece.
Ummm. Sorry. Old news.
It’s going to be tough for them: the DOJ, FBI, etc. are tying up all the shredder trucks!!
My thought too.
Where’s Ilhan?
Having SeCTS with her brother.
When it turns out they have deep ties to terrorist groups (a longstanding open secret) will there be action taken?
As I recall, all 3 CIRR founders were members of another Paly terrorist group which was shut done in America. In my opinion CAIR’s nonprofit status should be challenged and they should be investigated for potential criminal charges.
The investigation was already done. The FBI wanted to charge CAIR in the same case as the Holyland Foundation, but it couldn’t come up with the necessary evidence. Hence “unindicted coconspirator”, which means “We know they were in it together, but we can only prove it against HF, not against CAIR”.
Under the third term of Obama? No.
In 2025, more than likely.
No, nor will their sending money to Islamic “charities” that are actually fronts for the mujahideen (such funding being explicitly permitted by Islam’s rules for “charity”) be investigated.
Life sucks when the deep state can’t cover for you anymore
CAIR will do its best to settle out of court, no matter the monetary cost. Keeping its activities hidden is critical to the group’s survival.
Were it forced into the sunlight, radical Islam would lose a powerful advocate and fundraiser.
. . . or, maybe they could just dissolve and have their members absorbed into Columbia U. They pretty much have the same organizational mission.
PDF file is showing up as missing.
That’s not an accusation, it’s an openly acknowledged fact. But it’s not a legal issue, because sympathizing with a terrorist organization is not and can’t be illegal.
CAIR has long been accused of giving material support to Hamas, which is a crime that the FBI takes very seriously. But there was never enough evidence of this to prosecute, which is why some unethical person at the FBI leaked the fact that it was an “unindicted coconspirator”. That means “we suspect it of a crime but we can’t prove it”. In this case the suspicion is very likely to be true, but it’s wrong for the government ever to make such a revelation. Trump was also an “unindicted coconspirator” in all sorts of crimes that he didn’t do.
There was never enough evidence because nobody wanted to find such evidence. “Follow the money, find the crime” is the operative phrase here, and where CAIR sends its money, and from whom it receives it, is at best questionable, and almost certainly criminal. Every Islamic charity deserves comparable scrutiny.
Leave a Comment