Clinton
VP Pick Tim Kaine has Islamist Ties
Democratic
presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s newly-announced running mate, Virginia
Senator Tim Kaine, has a history of embracing Islamists. He appointed a Hamas
supporter to a state immigration commission; spoke at a dinner honoring a
Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect; and received donations from well-known
Islamist groups. Appointing
a Muslim Brotherhood Front Leader Who Supports Hamas
In 2007,
Kaine was the Governor of Virginia and, of all people, chose Muslim American
Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. A
Muslim organization against Islamism criticized the
appointment and reckless lack of vetting.
Federal
prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing that MAS was “founded
as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” A Chicago Tribune investigation in 2004 confirmed it,
as well as MAS’ crafty use of deceptive semantics to appear moderate. Convicted
terrorist and admitted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member Abdurrahman Alamoudi testified in 2012, “Everyone
knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.” Read our fully-documented profile of
MAS here.
According
to Omeish’s website, he was also President
of the National Muslim Students
Association
(click there to read our profile about its Muslim Brotherhood origins) and served
for two years on the national board of the Islamic Society of
North America (ISNA),
which the Justice Department also labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity
and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial.
His
website says he was Vice President of Dar al-Hijrah
Islamic Center,
a radical mosque known for its history of terror ties including having future
Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki as its imam and being frequented by two of
the 9/11 hijackers and the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting. Omeish’s
website says he remains a board member.
It says
he was chairman of the board of Islamic American
University,
which had Hamas financier and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef
Al-Qaradawi as chairman of its board until at least 2006. Omeish was also
chairman of the board for the Islamic Center of
Passaic County,
a New Jersey mosque with heavy terrorist ties and an imam that the Department
of Homeland Security wants to deport for having links to Hamas.
Omeish
directly expressed extremism before Kaine appointed him. He claimed the
Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the
Islamist movement. In 2004, Omeish praised the Hamas spiritual
leader as “our beloved Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.” Videotape from 2000 also surfaced where Omeish pledged
to help Palestinians who understand “the jihad way is the way to liberate your
land” (he denied this was an
endorsement of violence).
When a
state delegate wrote a letter to then-Governor Kaine warning him that the MAS
has “questionable origins,” a Kaine spokesperson said the charge was
bigotry. Kaine obviously failed to do any kind of basic background checking in
Omeish. Omeish resigned under heavy pressure and Kaine acknowledged that his
statements “concerned” him. But, apparently, they didn’t concern him enough to
actually learn about the Muslim Brotherhood network in his state and to take
greater precautions in the future.
Speaking
at a Dinner Honoring Muslim Brotherhood Terror Suspect In September 2011, Kaine
spoke at a
“Candidates Night” dinner organized by the New Dominion PAC that presented a
Lifetime Achievement Award for Jamal Barzinji, who the Global Muslim
Brotherhood Watch describes as a “founding father of the U.S. Muslim
Brotherhood.”
He first
came on to the FBI’s radar in 1987-1988 when an informant inside the
Brotherhood identified Barzinji
and his associated groups as being part of a network of Brotherhood fronts to
“institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The source said
Barzinji and his colleagues were “organizing political support which involves
influencing both public opinion in the United States as well as the United
States Government” using “political action front groups with no traceable
ties.”
Barzinji
had his home searched as part of a terrorism investigation in 2003. U.S.
Customs Service Senior Special Agent David Kane said in a sworn affidavit
that Barzinji and the network of entities he led were investigated because he
“is not only closed associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]…but also
with Hamas.” Counter-terrorism reporter Patrick Poole broke the story
that Barzinji was nearly prosecuted but the Obama Justice
Department dropped plans for indictment.
Barzinji
played a major role in nearly every Brotherhood front in the U.S. and was vice
president of the International
Institute of Islamic Thought, which came under terrorism investigation
also. Barzinji’s group was so close to Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami
Al-Arian that IIIT’s President considered his group and Al-Arian’s to be essentially one
entity.
The indictment of Al-Arian and his
colleagues says that they “would and did seek to obtain support from
influential individuals, in the United States under the guise of promoting and
protecting Arab rights” (emphasis mine).
The
quotes about Brotherhood operative Barzinji’s aspirations to use civil rights
advocacy as a means to influence politicians are especially relevant when you
consider that video from the event
honoring Barzinji shows Kaine saying that it was his fourth time at the annual
dinner and thanked his “friends” that organized it for helping him in his
campaign for Lieutenant-Governor and Governor and asked them to help his Senate
campaign.
Islamist
Financial Support - Barzinji’s
organization, IIIT, donated $10,000 in 2011 to the New
Dominion PAC, the organization that held the event honoring Barzinji that Kaine
spoke at. The Barzinji-tied New Dominion PAC donated $43,050 to Kaine’s
gubernatorial campaign between 2003 and 2005. That figure doesn’t even include
other political recipients that assisted Kaine’s campaign.
The PAC
has very strong ties to the Democratic Party in Virginia, with the Virginia
Public Access Project tallying almost $257,000 in
donations.
This likely explains why Barzinji’s grandson served in Governor
McAuliffe’s administration and then became the Obama Administration’s liaison
to the Muslim-American community.
The
Middle East Forum’s Islamist Money in
Politics database
shows another $4,300 donated to Kaine’s Senate campaign in 2011-2012 by
officials from Islamic Society of
North America (ISNA)
and the Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Another $3,500 came from Hisham Al-Talib, a
leader from Barzinji’s IIIT organization.
It’s
worth noting that Barzinji’s IIIT donated $3,500 to Esam Omeish’s 2009
campaign delegate campaign, tying together the cadre of Muslim
Brotherhood-linked leaders who got into Kaine’s orbit.
Conclusion
Kaine has
no excuse. If he has an Internet connection, then he and his staff should have
known about their backgrounds. They were either extremely careless (something
Kaine would have in common with the top of the
ticket) or knew and looked the other way in the hopes of earning donations and
votes.
Clinton’s
choice of Kaine is widely seen as a way of strengthening her campaign’s
national security credentials. How can
you trust a candidate on national security who appoints a Hamas supporter to
their immigration commission and speaks at a dinner honoring a Muslim
Brotherhood terror suspect?
And how
can you trust a candidate who picks such a person as their “strong on national
security” running mate?
http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidential-race/2016/07/23/clinton-vp-pick-tim-kaines-islamist-ties/
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