Rollback #3: Why did the White House hide the names of 3 guests at Iftar dinner? CSP filing FOIA request to find names of attendees since 2009

August 10, 2011, President Obama hosted his third annual Iftar dinner celebrating Ramadan at the White House.  Neil Munro of the Daily Caller noted that the invite list was much shorter than previous years and had been scrubbed of several “controversial” Muslim leaders who had attended in the past.  Daniel Pipes,  writing at the Investigative Project, identified three Islamist attendees who were not on the official list released by the White House but who are reported to have attended:

• Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America;
• Awais Sufi, Chairman of Muslim Advocates; and
• Haris Tarin, Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Why did the White House conduct a cover-up of the attendance by these three Muslim leaders of Islamist lobbying and advocacy groups?  Here’s what these three groups share:  first, they have all lobbied the White House, U.S. Treasury and other agencies to gut regulations that prevent Islamic charities from funding terrorism.  And second, they have objected to law enforcement efforts to prevent homegrown terrorism.

In 2009 and 2010, the White House entertained these same leaders who bragged that the Iftar dinners were an opportunity to change U.S. policy on terror financing.  These dinners appear to have become lobbying events under the guise of religious outreach.  Therefore, the Center for Security Policy is filing a FOIA request to OMB asking for the names of all invitees to all agency dinners since 2009 – including the names that the White House has chosen in the past to cover up, like these three below:

• Imam Mohamed Magid, President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA); an organization named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation Hamas-funding trial.  ISNA released a special announcement the next day confirming that Magid had attended, and was “very pleased with the focus of Obama’s address.”

Last year as ISNA’s Vice President, Magid and ISNA West Zone Representative Monem Salam attended an intimate Iftar hosted by the U.S. Department of Treasury, with Salam boasting that “ISNA representatives were given a very open platform to discuss our concerns."  The pair met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, explaining that a paramount concern was:

…’the fear by many Muslims to donate zakat (charity), due to the increased scrutiny by the government of donations to Muslim organizations.’  Additionally, many organizations and individuals still have assets frozen by the government, despite the fact that no charges have been brought against them for misuse of funds or ties to terrorism, which would warrant such freezes.

During Ramadan 2010 ISNA announced that its “leadership and staff have been busy attending iftars hosted by the White House, State Department, Federal and State Agencies, Embassies, elected officials and interfaith partners.”  And that in 2010:

…a phenomenal next step has been made where government iftars become coupled with workshops to provide resources and benefit the Muslim community.  The US Department of Agriculture (DOA) and the Coordinating Council of Muslim Organizations (CCMO) have paired the first of such events, scheduled for August 31, 2010.

• Awais Sufi, Chairman of Muslim Advocates, an organization that in March 2010 wrote a letter to President Obama urging him to make good on the zakat-related promises in his well-known 2009 Cairo speech:

… for American Muslims, philanthropic activities are complicated by federal laws, policies and practices.  Surveillance, investigations and prosecutions of several Muslim charities have created a chill on well-intentioned charitable activities.  Many American Muslims have faced federal law enforcement scrutiny of their giving or associations with lawful, U.S. charities and as a result are understandably fearful of giving.

In June, 2006, Awais Sufi participated in a panel critical of government efforts to regulate Islamic charities suspected of terrorism funding.

As detailed in the thorough dossier on Muslim Advocates at Steve Emerson’s Investigative Project, the organization has a history of opposing cooperation with the FBI or other law enforcement by American Muslims:

• • In hearings held in March 2011, Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) read several cases off the Investigative Project on Terrorism’s list of 2010 homegrown terror cases, and asked Muslim Advocates Executive Director Farhana Khera  whether she stood by an alert on the Muslim Advocates’ web page advising people "not to speak with law enforcement officials without the presence or advice of an attorney."  She did. Kyl called that "stunning" because cooperation from Muslim Americans is vital in thwarting potential terrorist plots.
  • In December 2010, Muslim Advocate’s Khera called FBI sting operations that have stopped homegrown terrorism “entrapment operations”  that fuel “anti-Muslim sentiment.” 
  • In an April 13, 2010 article titled “Americans Should Be Free to Pray without FBI Snooping,” Muslim Advocates’ Khera accused the FBI of “planting informants” in “American Muslim congregations.”
  • In July 2010 at the ISNA convention, Muslim Advocates’ Khera spoke in defense of Imam Ahmed Afzali, who had pleaded guilty in March 2010 to lying to the FBI about tipping off New York subway bomb plotter Najibullah Zazi.  Khera said Afzali was trying to “self-police” the community.
  • In December 2007, another Muslim Advocates counsel Akil Vohra denied the connection between Muslim charities such as the Holy Land Foundation (later convicted) and terrorism.

• And Haris Tarin, Director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), an organization whose opposition to regulation of charities linked to terrorism funding is concisely documented by the Investigative Project in their 2010 88 page dossier on MPAC (see the section on MPAC and terrorism funding here).  The MPAC dossier lists case after case of MPAC’s predictable denial of any guilt by organizations subsequently convicted of terrorism funding,  accompanied always with harsh criticism of the FBI investigations as an "assault on the community" that "further isolated and alienated law-abiding Muslims."  As the Investigative Project states, “Based on its record, the odds seem substantially longer against MPAC shedding its stance as a perpetual apologist for terrorists and their financiers.”

Of course the Muslim “charities” in question are prohibited from receiving zakat because they have been deemed by the Treasury Department to be funding terrorism or are under investigation for doing so.  It is not surprising that MB-associated groups like ISNA, Muslim Advocates or MPAC would be lobbying for the lifting of sanctions against these organizations, but it is deeply disturbing that the U.S. Department of the Treasury would be giving them such insider access to prominent officials to do so.

The Center for Security Policy has filed a FOIA request for a list of other Iftar-related events and invitees from 2009-2011 at all federal agencies and branches of government.  The public has a compelling interest in any special access given to MB-associated organizations, especially when they have publicly stated that they are lobbying the Treasury Secretary to reduce limits on funding for potential jihadist terrorism.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s growth in America has expanded greatly since the 1990s, with their stated goal “that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands.”   The Muslim Brotherhood’s plan to impose Shariah and censorship in America reaches into our media, our government, our military and law enforcement, our textbooks and our colleges.  Anyone who openly opposes the Muslim Brotherhood – that would be well over 200 million Americans, according to polls – has been labeled an “islamophobe” by the leftwing media.

Enough is enough.  Americans across the nation have started pushing back against the Muslim Brotherhood’s trademark intimidation and threats.  The Center for Security Policy is tracking these efforts to expose and to eliminate the Muslim Brotherhood’s  influence over  how we talk and think, how we govern ourselves and  enforce our laws, and how we make our own plans for our children’s future of freedom under the Constitution, not enslavement under Shariah law.  

We call it The Rollback.  Follow the campaign at www.therollback.org.