Money in politics? Ilhan Omar will fly to LA for fundraiser with … terror-tied CAIR

Newly elected Rep. Ilhan Omar will jet off to Los Angeles next month to keynote a fundraiser for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a terror-tied organization that was named an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist financing case in U.S. history.

On March 23, Omar will speak at CAIR-Los Angeles’ 4th Annual Valley Banquet, where tables will cost $500.

“CAIR-LA is honored to have Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN) as the featured speaker for the 4th Annual Valley Banquet,” reads a press release from the Los Angeles chapter of the group that was formed as a Hamas support network in the United States.

She will deliver her address alongside CAIR-Florida director Hassan Shibly, according to a CAIR flier promoting the event. Shibly is a dedicated Islamist and bigoted gay basher. A fan of radical clerics, he has routinely refused to categorize U.S.-designated terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, according to the Clarion Project. Moreover, Shibly regularly takes to social media to demonize the U.S. military as equivalent to the jihadi terrorists that they are fighting. 

The director of CAIR-Los Angeles is Hussam Ayloush, who, like many CAIR executives, has disturbing Islamist views. Following the tragic San Bernardino terrorist attacks, Ayloush suggested that the United States was “partly responsible” for the ISIS-led attack on innocents in California. “Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy, as Americans, as the West, have fueled that extremism,” he added. Ayloush has in the past described U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as part of a campaign to instill “fear of the Muslims.”

The news comes on the heels of Rep. Omar’s controversial comments — that many on the Left and Right almost unanimously condemned as anti-Semitic tropes — about money in politics, in which she claimed that Jewish groups like AIPAC buy off politicians. Though AIPAC does not contribute to political campaigns, CAIR certainly does. Omar has received tens of thousands of dollars from CAIR and other political action committees. Additionally, CAIR held several fundraising events solely for the benefit of Omar’s congressional campaign.

CAIR’s fundraiser is just one of the controversial events lined up for Omar’s schedule. On February 23, she will speak at a fundraiser for Islamic Relief USA, the American branch of the terror-tied group Islamic Relief Worldwide. The Middle East Forum has discovered that she will be accompanied by a senior charity official who has often “expressed violently anti-Semitic ideas on his social-media accounts,” sometimes specifically calling for the murder of Jews. Islamic Relief has been banned by Israel and the UAE for allegedly funneling money to terrorist organizations. HSBC bank has also severed ties with the organization, cautioning that funds delivered to the group could end up in the war chests of terrorist organizations.

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