‘Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right, and it should not subsidize organizations with links to terrorism,’ Arkansas senator writes
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) is petitioning the IRS to formally investigate the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for violations of its tax-exempt status, citing “ties to terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” according to a formal letter sent Tuesday and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
CAIR, one of the nation’s foremost anti-Israel advocacy organizations, has long been dogged by accusations that its funding streams are entangled with Hamas. It was named as a co-conspirator in a 2009 federal court case related to terrorism financing and has since become a leading force in the pro-Hamas campus movement that erupted after Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attacks.
Cotton, chair of the Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, says that CAIR’s “deep ties to terrorist organizations” warrant an immediate IRS investigation to determine if the group is in compliance with section 501(c)(3) of the tax code, which governs nonprofits. The senator wants the federal probe to include a comprehensive review of CAIR’s “financial records, affiliations, and activities,” according to the letter addressed to IRS commissioner Billy Long.
While CAIR’s funding networks have drawn congressional scrutiny in the past, Cotton’s letter marks the first time since Oct. 7 that a leading GOP senator is formally requesting the IRS to engage in investigative oversight. CAIR’s financial records remain opaque, though the organization maintains it is primarily funded through individual donations.
“The IRS has broad authority to examine whether an entity’s operations align with its exempt purpose,” Cotton wrote. “Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right, and it should not subsidize organizations with links to terrorism.”
The government’s 2009 investigation “revealed that CAIR’s founders participated in a meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia, where they discussed strategies to advance the Islamist agenda in America while concealing their true affiliations,” according to the letter. A founder of CAIR’s Texas chapter was later sentenced to 65 years in prison as a result of the case.
In November 2023, just a month after Hamas’s brutal terror spree, CAIR executive director Nihad Awad said he was “happy to see” Palestinians in the Gaza Strip “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land.” The comments elicited a rare rebuke from the former Biden administration and led it to sever ties with the advocacy group, which it originally tapped to serve on an executive body meant to stem anti-Semitism.
“I was happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land and walk free into their lands that they were not allowed to walk in,” Awad said. “And yes, 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.”
Awad also reportedly met with “several members of the Muslim Brotherhood as recently as 2022,” according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes CAIR as “openly antisemitic and anti-Zionist.”
Awad also penned an April 2024 Facebook eulogy for Sheikh Abdul-Majid al-Zindani, who was designated by the United States “as a recruiter and fundraiser for al-Qaeda,” according to the ADL.
CAIR’s San Francisco area executive director, anti-Israel activist Zahra Billoo, drew widespread condemnation in 2021 when she declared that “Zionists” are “your enemies” and that pro-Palestinian activists must “pay attention” to “Zionist synagogues.”
Cotton makes clear in his letter that U.S. nonprofit groups must “operate exclusively for charitable, educational, or religious purposes, and are prohibited from providing material support to terrorism.”
