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Besides Bonoir, what in the word do these Congress critters have in common??? Why McKinney...Why

Hyde...why...Campbell....why Davis?? Davis and McKinney are both communists, but that's all I can see in common.

Abdullah Al Arian, son of indicted terrorist fundraiser Sami Al Arian, is an intern in Bonior's office.
Suhail Khan, son of the late Mahboob Khan (a California cleric at whose mosque Ayman Al Zawahiri raised money for Al Qaeda in 1995), was on Campbell's congressional staff, was campaign spokesman for Campbell's unsuccessful Senatorial run in 2000, and later served in the Bush White House as the aide in charge of Muslim Outreach.

"I find this very, very strange," Bonior said Thursday. "I just find this very hard to believe."

Bonior said that he and Al-Arian had worked against the government's use of secret evidence in the antiterror campaign.

Bonior said Al-Arian and his family "care very deeply about civil rights and civil liberty."

Al-Arian was first targeted by a federal probe in 1995 when a USF think tank he founded was raided by federal agents and accused of being a front group for terrorism. Al-Arian has vehemently denied any ties to terrorists, but after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, USF placed the computer engineering professor on forced leave and banned him from campus, located in Tampa, for outspoken, inflammatory support for Palestinian causes.

In 1999, Bonior became a champion of Arab-American rights at USF and in the Tampa area after Al-Arian's brother, Mazen Al-Najjar, was held by federal authorities on "secret evidence" though he was never charged with a crime. Al-Najjar was also suspected of terrorist connections.

Bonior hired Al-Arian's son, Abdullah, in 2001 as an intern in his Capitol Hill office.

Bonior spokesman Ed Bruley said Bonior is aware of the controversy surrounding Al-Arian.

"I know of Mr. Al-Arian, and I know of the accusations but it is just that - accusations," Bruley said. "We are not going to respond to these accusations."

Terrorism expert Steven Emerson told a Congressional committee in 1998 that the think tank and charity served as the "effective command and control center of the Islamic Jihad in the United States."

Conferences organized by the think tank drew appearances from both known and suspected terrorists, including Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who was convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Federal agents also suspect Al-Arian of having ties to Osama bin Laden, whose terrorist network al-Qaida is believed to be responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks. According to the Tampa Tribune, Al-Arian arranged an interview between bin Laden and ABC News in 1998.

In a video of an anti-Israel protest outside the White House on Oct. 28, 2000, Alamoudi voices support for Hamas and Hezbollah. Alamoudi roused the crowd by saying the New York media had labeled him as a supporter of Hamas, which has taken responsibility for attacks on Israeli citizens.

"Besides Bonoir, what in the word do these Congress critters have in common??? Why McKinney...Why Hyde...why...Campbell....why Davis??"

Ann, see my post on today's thread here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/852134/posts?page=33#33

First, I think Henry Hyde is honorable and did nothing wrong just because the Al-Arians made a donation (he has since moved it to a charity). I DO think the Al-Arians had an idea of how "the system works"...

I have yet to see one single article about the Al-Arians or her brother that was deported, Al-Najjar, state that she testified before Congress not once, but twice!

I stumbled across the information doing a search on the name Al-Arian. Since I had already seen a post about the donations on another thread, and Hyde's name had popped out at me, as it did for you, I was interested to find that Nahla Al-Arian testified before him 3 months after making her donation.