Norquist-Gaffney feud leads to exile

What is AMC? The American Museum Council? ;)

GLAD YOU ASKED :>)

THE AMC IS A TERRORIST DREAM COME TRUE WITH HELP FROM GROVER...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=amc%3B+terrorist

Not only were the al-Arians not avoided by the Bush White House - they were actively courted. Candidate Bush allowed himself to be photographed with the al-Arian family while campaigning in Florida.

There is nothing to show the Bush White House "courted" the Al-Arians. I part ways with Frum on THAT characterization.

The campaign photo was taken when the Al-Arians approached Candidate Bush, (see previous postings from WH spokeswoman AND Newsweek), and GWB would have no way in the world, while on the campaign trail, to know the intelligence on the family. It's not like a pre-arranged meeting.

The WH visit should never have taken place--but I believe Sami Al-Arian sought and gained the access, not the WH reaching out to him.

I concede my error to you....(although I take umbrage at your "you must be joking" remark, I have never been sarcastic to you, have always tried to be nice to you ST)...

I jumped in on the middle of this thread and didn't read it all through..

Maybe the time has come for SOMEONE (a NAMED SOURCE) from the White House to make some sort of statement to put this issue to bed/rest.

I think these two are just playing neener neener neener GOTCHYA...

From here:

Republican Senate hopeful Rick Lazio accused rival Hillary Clinton Saturday of trying to hide a controversial campaign donation by disguising its source on Federal Election Commission records - a development reported exclusively by NewsMax.com on Friday.

The $1,000 donation came from Abdurahman Alamoudi, an official with the American Muslim Council, who once boasted he visited the White House and defended the notorious Middle Eastern terrorist group Hamas. . . .

"Mrs. Clinton may have even attempted to hide Alamoudi's American Muslim Council ties. Her campaign's FEC filing actually lists Alamoudi's employer as 'The American Museum Council.'" (See: Hillary Caught in Pro-Arafat Fund-Raising Cover-Up.) . . .

The Clinton campaign claimed Saturday that "Muslim" became "Museum" on its FEC filing through an innocent typographical error.

I concede my error to you....(although I take umbrage at your "you must be joking" remark, I have never been sarcastic to you, have always tried to be nice to you ST)...

I jumped in on the middle of this thread and didn't read it all through..

My apologies. I got a little testy, but shouldn't have given you any grief over it.

Maybe the time has come for SOMEONE (a NAMED SOURCE) from the White House to make some sort of statement to put this issue to bed/rest.

Big time agreement from this poster. And they need to get it right the first time.
Norquist gives every impression of being in hunker down mode, after playing the race card failed him. If Gaffney's charges are on the mark (and the Norquist's silence is eloquently self-incriminating), then Grover Norquist and those terrorist sympathizers with whom he's associated, have got to go, and never darken the doors of the White House again.

Thanks for being the gentleman I know you always are ST...

Again, we are both in 100% agreement there....

Have a nice evening!

The allegation has been made that Norquist got *terrorists* into the WH willfuly and knowingly. Yes, I would like the answer, but unlike some, I do not think it has been proven (I refer to all elements: that KNOWN terrorists were"willfully" and "knowingly" allowed in.)

I think you are blowing it a tad out of proportion. No one has said that known terrorists have been knowingly brought in to meet the President.

I think you are blowing it a tad out of proportion. No one has said that known terrorists have been knowingly brought in to meet the President.

Sorry, but that is exactly what some have said on this subject. I've been discussing it for several days now. Besides, see post #114 on this very thread, though admittedly the poster may not have understood what I was saying, he has made the charge explicitly in the past. He also called Sami Al-Arian a friend of the president's. He's called for Norquist to be investigated just as the suspected terrorists are investigated, and he has alleged treason as it pertains to Norquist.

He also called Sami Al-Arian a friend of the president's.

That poster was clearly popping off, and later retracted that statement.

He's called for Norquist to be investigated just as the suspected terrorists are investigated, and he has alleged treason as it pertains to Norquist.

While I understand that you haven't reached the same conclusions that I have, you have to acknowledge, that if Grover Norquist has done what is alleged, then the only alternative to treason is blithering stupidity. For myself, I lean toward the latter, with some sort of Scott Ritter scenario in the realm of possibility.
I believe a thorough investigation of Grover Norquist's affiliations with radical Islamists very necessary.

Treason was what was said on O'Reilly last night....

Sabertooth,

I'm very late getting to this story, but I would like to take a closer look at it myself. Can you provide specifics and credible sources for the comments you posted copied below? I'm not questioning your credibility, but I'd like to know where you got this exact information. If you have more than one source, please link the ones you believe to be the most credible. I apologize if I'm asking you to duplicate previous posts. Thanks.

Thanks for your patience. Here are your questions, and the information in which you were intereste.
Full disclosure: I've posted a lot of this info before in this form, on other threads where similar questions have been asked. Let me know if there's anything on which you'd like further clarification.

Sabertooth: Norquist and his proteges have brought terrorist supporters and sympathizers into the White House, and continue to do so.

Ms. AntiFeminazi: Who and when?

That's the million dollar question, and what got this all rolling. The two names we know on this list are Suhail Khan and Ali Tulbah.
In a letter sent yesterday to Mr. Gaffney, Mr. Norquist accused him of impugning the loyalty of Ali Tulbah, an American Muslim and an associate director of Cabinet affairs in the White House.
"There is no place in the conservative movement for racial prejudice, religious bigotry or ethnic hatred," Mr. Norquist wrote. "This is the second time that a Muslim working for President George W. Bush has been subjected to an attack by you because of his faith. You have made similarly dishonest allegations against [public liaison official] Suhail Khan while he worked inside the White House."
Washington Times LINK - February 6th, 2003
The AMC press release made a point of commending Ali Tulbah, an associate director of the White House's Office of Cabinet Affairs, for including their representatives (notably, executive director Eric Erfan Vickers) in the meeting. Mr. Tulbah similarly admitted another highly controversial organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in this meeting. There appear to have been at least nine other meetings that these groups have attended with the White House and senior administration officials since September 2001, some at the invitation of a predecessor of Mr. Tulbah in the role of gatekeeper for the administration's Muslim "outreach" efforts, Suhail Khan.
Frank Gaffney Column LINK - February 11th, 2003
AMC Attends White House Briefing on Controversial INS Policy
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 17, 2003:
Yesterday AMC Executive Director Eric Erfan Vickers and Board Secretary Dr. Nedzib Sacirbey attended, along with other Muslim and Arab American leaders, a White House briefing on the controversial INS policy that has caused to many tremendous personal hardships, and which has created mounting consternation in the Muslim and Arab American community.
The briefing was arranged by Ali H. Tulbah, the Associate Director of Cabinet Affairs, and AMC commends him for initiating this substantive dialogue with key officials in the White House Administration.
American Muslim Council LINK

So, the American Muslim Council press release specifically confirms Gaffney's allegations about Ali H. Tulbah.
As for Suhail Khan...
One day after Bush's inauguration, (Norquist) and Saffuri arranged for Muslim leaders to meet Newt Gingrich and Congressman Tom Davis, head of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Soon Saffuri began regularly appearing at the White House, accompanying imams and heads of Islamic organizations to discuss the faith-based initiative and concerns about law enforcement persecution of Muslims. Suhail Khan, an administration adviser who helps plan Muslim outreach, once served on the Islamic Institute's board. And at one of his regular Wednesday meetings, according to two witnesses, Norquist announced that he had lobbied to get Khan his White House post.
New Republic LINK
Why are Muslim and Arab "civil rights" groups the only ones protesting new FBI rules to fight terrorism?
Why aren't mainstream Christian and Jewish groups protesting the new guidelines handed down by Attorney General John Ashcroft and his Justice Department? Or Hispanic groups?
Maybe because Muslim, mostly Arab, terrorists — including at least two 9/11 hijackers — deliberately used U.S. mosques to fundraise for and plan terrorist attacks. Maybe because they knew that, under the old rules, it had been difficult for FBI counterterrorism operatives to surveil terrorists once they stepped into the mosques. And they, the terrorists — and many Muslim allies in the U.S. — took advantage of this.
The old rules were used by a blind cleric, a professor, and even the mosque founded and headed by the father of a Bush administration official, to fund and/or plan terror, undetected.
Take the Santa Clara Masjid (Mosque). According to the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, Osama bin Laden's deputy (or boss, depending upon the intelligence report), Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, visited the United States in early 1995 using a forged passport, and raised money for terrorist operations at various U.S. mosques, including the Santa Clara Mosque, a.k.a. Masjid Al-Noor, a.k.a. MCA (Muslim Community Association) of Santa Clara.
The late Mahboob Khan is identified by a 1999 "MCA Newsletter" as the man "whose constant efforts and guidance. . . establish[ed] the Islamic Center" of Santa Clara. A 1999 Islamic Horizons magazine obituary for Mahboob Khan quotes a former secretary general of the Islamic Society of North America as saying that Dr. Khan "was in the forefront in the struggle" of "the Santa Clara mosque." This includes the time period when Zawahiri was staying in Santa Clara and raising money at Khan's mosque.
Khan was the founder of American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, the group spearheading the boycott of Starbucks in the United States. Incredibly, Khan's son, Suhail Khan, was the Bush White House's Muslim outreach official last year. He is also a current and founding board member of the Islamic Institute, which openly opposes the new FBI rules, lodging protests with Ashcroft.
Schlussel Column LINK - July 10th, 2002

So Suhail Khan's father helped Ayman Al Zawahiri (who helped mastermind 9/11, the Cole bombing, the American Embassy bopmbings in Kenya and Uganda, the Luxor Temple massacre of dozens of European tourists, and the assassination of Anwar Sadat), secretly raise money in the United States for terrorist enterprises while on the FBI's watch list? This is who Grover Norquist aligns himself with as a founding board member of Norquist's Islamic Institute? This is who Gover Norquist recommends for a job as the Bush Administration's Muslim outreach official?
Is it such a stretch that Suhail Khan, who sat on the board of the Norquist and Khaled Saffuri's Islamic Institute, and got his White House position as a result of the lobbying of Grover Norquist, arranged meetings for other like-minded radical Islamists with members of the Bush Administration?
I've also seen reports to the effect that Ali Tulbah's family has terror links in Texas, but have not been able to locate that information, as yet.

Sabertooth: Norquist's Islamic Institute has received donations from a number of questionable sources, among them the Holy Land Foundation, who's had their assets seized after having been listed as a terror org. They have funded suicide bombers and their families in Israel, to the tune of at least $13 million.

Ms. AntiFeminazi: How do you know this? Is it published information?
Who else does Norquist's Islamic Institute receive donations from? I know about The Holy Land Foundation. I'm questioning Norquist's connection to them.

In fact, Norquist has represented at least one Arab satrapy – Qatar – in its dealings with Washington. Several years ago, Norquist and Khaled Saffuri – an Arab American who had been employed by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee – set up something called The Islamic Institute – which for a time just happened to have the same address as the Americans for Tax Reform.
Is it fair to ask any of my valued right-wing readers who might have contributed money to Norquist's tax-reform effort to ask him if any bucks migrated to the Islamic Institute? If any money did go in that direction, I'll bet it doesn't anymore. The reason is today the Institute is probably rolling in dough, starting with the $150,000 received from the government of Qatar.
Ellen Ratner - World Net Daily

Ouch! But there's more...
The documents come in many flavors. They include Saudi-government accounting schedules showing the amount of money paid to individual Palestinians and their families, with the names of suicide bombers and others who carried out armed attacks against Israelis highlighted in yellow, blue and pink. They include correspondence between Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Saudi government that discusses the payments. They also include a damning letter from the Saudis complaining that the Palestinians had exposed the secret financial ties by allowing the publication of a Feb. 19 report in the PA publication al-Hayat al-Jedida thanking Saudi Arabia for assisting the families of terrorists killed in attacks on Israelis. < -snip- >
Other foreign donors included the largest Muslim charity in the United States, the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) in Richardson, Texas, whose assets were frozen in December 2001 on presidential order because of its alleged ties to terrorist groups.
The HLF frequently has been singled out by the Israelis as a major source of funding for Hamas. Last year, it raised an estimated $13 million, which it boasted of donating to charities in the West Bank and Gaza. HLF supporters, which include groups such as the American Muslim Council and the Islamic Association for Palestine, claim they merely are providing humanitarian aid for Palestinian families, much as the Saudis are doing today.
Khaled Saffuri, a former legislative director of the American Muslim Council who now heads the Islamic Institute in Washington, has met with top Justice Department officials several times since the HLF was shut down — including a private dinner with U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft — questioning the breadth and manner of the FBI crackdown on Muslim charities in America. Saffuri openly boasts of his ties to the Bush White House and to top Republican strategist Grover Norquist, who cofounded the Islamic Institute four years ago.
In a meeting with Insight editors last week, Saffuri firmly denounced Hamas, Hezbollah and all other terrorist groups. He called for Arafat's ouster. Norquist, also present at the meeting, heatedly dismissed critics of his efforts on behalf of Saffuri and other Muslim leaders, some of whom have been tied to Hamas fund-raising efforts in the United States, as "bigots" and "racists spreading lies."
< -snip- >
Documents seized by the Israelis suggest that the substantial payments distributed to the families were a key element in recruiting suicide bombers. The one-time grants amounted to $25,000 per family from the government of Iraq, $5,300 from Saudi Arabia, $2,000 from the PA and $500 each from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.
Kenneth R. Timmerman - Insight Magazine

Well, that should cover it, right? However…
Under Saffuri's leadership, the Islamic Institute has attacked the Bush Administration's investigations of radical Muslim groups and closures of organizations suspected of funding terrorists. The Institute has been funded by groups raided in the above-mentioned terrorist financing investigations. It lobbied intensively against portions of the USA Patriot Act. And Saffuri has personally denounced the President's listing of the Holy Land Foundation as a charity that supported terrorist organizations. He has acknowledged sponsoring the children of suicide bombers through the Foundation, even after its closure by the government.
Frank Gaffney Jr. - Townhall.com

So, Saffuri denounces Hamas, yet defends the Holy Land Foundation, which supports Hamas. More on the HLF…
Helping fund-raise for terrorism: The Holy Land Foundation is one of the main American conduits of money to Hamas; not surprisingly, AMC has lavished praise on it, bestowing an award on it for a "strong global vision." When President Bush closed Holy Land after 9/11 for collecting money "used to support the Hamas terror organization," AMC responded by condemning the president's act as "particularly disturbing . . . unjust and counterproductive."
Daniel Pipes - DanielPipes.org

BTW, the American Muslim Council has also had plenty of White House access…
On the Republican side, activist Grover Norquist and Rep. Tom Davis have been loyal advocates of Muslim causes. Davis's role has been more conventional, marked most notably by his shepherding through Congress the bill to require the Postal Service to issue an Islamic religious stamp, inconveniently issued last September. Norquist, on the other hand, has been much more pro-active, claiming last year in The American Spectator that Muslims were responsible for President Bush's election victory. He is a founding director of the Islamic Institute, which received funds from the Holy Land Foundation, a Muslim "charity" shut down by the FBI in December. Norquist has also ushered into the White House a collection of anti-Israel groups, including the Council on American Islamic Affairs, the American Muslim Council, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Mark Krikorian - National Review Online

Other names…
The target of an anti-terrorist raid in the United States last week provided funds for an Islamic group with close ties to the Republican party and the White House.
The Safa trust, a Saudi-backed charity, has provided funds for a political group called the Islamic Institute, which was set up to mobilise support for the Republican party. It shares an office in Washington with the Republican activist Grover Norquist.
The institute, founded in 1999 to win influence in the Republican party, has helped to arrange meetings between senior Bush officials and Islamic leaders, according to the report in Newsweek magazine. Its s chairman, Khaled Saffuri, and Mr Norquist cooperated to arrange the meetings.
The trust gave $20,000 (£14,000) to the institute, which also received $20,000 from a board member of the Success Foundation, according to the report. The institute has also received money from abroad, including$200,000 from Qatar and $55,000 from Kuwait. The institute says that none of the money came with strings attached.
Mr Norquist, who is a member of the institute's board, said that it existed "to promote democracy and free markets. Any effort to imply guilt by association is incompetent McCarthyism".
Duncan Campbell - Guardian Unlimited

Well then, I suppose the only course of action is to go to the top…
WASHINGTON -- Two weeks after his agents raided the offices of several Islamic charities and businesses suspected of financing terrorism, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill met with two politically connected Muslim activists, one a longtime Bush family associate, who each had a tie to the targeted groups.
The April 4 luncheon with Mr. O'Neill was convened to allow Muslim-Americans to voice complaints about the March 20 raid on the International Institute for Islamic Thought and 19 related entities that operate out of offices at 555 Grove St. in Herndon, Va., a Washington suburb.
Among the Muslim leaders attending was Talat Othman, a longtime associate and supporter of President Bush's family who gave a benediction at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000. Mr. Othman went to the Treasury representing the Arab-American Business and Professional Association. But he also serves on the board of Amana Mutual Funds Trust, an investment firm founded by M. Yacqub Mirza, the Northern Virginia businessman who set up most of the entities targeted by the Treasury and whose tax records were sought in the raid.
Also at the meeting was Khaled Saffuri, head of the Islamic Institute, a group he co-founded with GOP activist Grover Norquist to organize conservative Muslims. The institute has accepted $20,000 in contributions from another Grove Street entity suspected of terrorist connections, the Safa Trust, as earlier reported by Newsweek. Asked for comment, Mr. Norquist, a board member of the institute, confirmed the donation. Mr. Saffuri couldn't be reached.
Glenn R. Simpson - Wall Street Journal

Isn't this getting a little close to abusing political access to affect the course of an investigation?

Sabertooth: Norquist's Islamic Instute took a $150,000 in donations from Qatar, at the same time Arafat had passed the hat to Arab nations for his homicide bomber fund. Qatar kicked in $500 a pop.

Ms. AntiFeminazi: Same as above - How do you know this? Is it published information?

See above. Here's a little more on the $150,000…
I serve as a volunteer on the board of directors of the Islamic Institute, a foundation that promotes free markets, religious liberty, democracy and a free press. The Institute co-sponsors an annual conference in Doha, Qatar, to promote liberty in the Muslim world. This year, at the conference, the head of the World Trade Organization spoke on free trade, four U.S. congressmen spoke on panels, the American ambassador opened the conference and the U.S. military provided a tour of the military base that is the largest pre-positioning of American military equipment outside Europe.
The University of Qatar contributed $150,000 to help fund part of the conference. Ms. Ratner suggests that I got some or all of that money.
Grover Norquist - World Net Daily

The University of Qatar is a state institution whose founding was ordered by a decree of the Emir of Qatar in 1973 (link).
Norquist's excerpt above is in response to Ratner's article, which I excerpted at the top of this post. If you follow the link, he goes into more detail regarding his objections to her piece, with lots of charges of racism and bigotry sprinkled in. Without getting into all of that here, let me call attention to Norquist's statement, "I serve as a volunteer on the board of directors of the Islamic Institute."
This is quite disingenuous. Norquist isn't just a volunteer, he actually founded the Islamic Institute, as several sources have shown. Further, he doesn't ever deny doing so, he just hopes we won't notice.
Additionally, he's got one of his organizations renting from another, the Americans for Tax Reform, from which he draw a salary. But not a big one, only $4,800 a year (link).
Norquist's various organizations give him a great deal of clout, which enhance his reputation as a lobbyist. In the late 1990s, for example, he took in $120,000 annually from Microsoft alone (link).
So, the benefits that Norquist receives from donors to the ATR or the Islamic Institute isn't direct, it's in his enhance clout as a lobbyist. Nothing necessarily illegal in that, but the benefits of donations are there, they're just indirect.

Ms. AntiFeminazi: One last question: Is this the same Islamic Institute we're discussing?

I don't see Grover's name there. I must be missing something. Who is on their Board of Directors?

As shown above in several places, it's indeed the same Islamic Institute.
I don't know all the names on the board, but you've seen that one member is Suhail Khan, above.
Here's some more on the American Muslim Council, from Daniel Pipes:
[The AMC;] 'Mainstream' Muslims?
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
June 18, 2002
FBI directors don't make a habit of breaking bread with organizations their agents may soon be investigating, perhaps even closing. Robert S. Mueller III, however, is about to make precisely this blunder: On June 28, he is scheduled to deliver a lunch talk to the American Muslim Council.

Mueller accepted this invitation, his spokesman Bill Carter explains, because the FBI regards the AMC as "the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States."

The AMC does indeed seek to convey a message of moderation. Its event this month, for example, is reassuringly titled "American Muslims: Part of America." AMC also boasts of having initiated "many of the historic events marking the entrance of Muslims into mainstream American culture and life."

Public relations, however, is not reality. The FBI may have missed the AMC's true nature because until just days ago its guidelines prohibited it from collecting general information on an organization of this sort. To help it catch up, then, here are five compelling reasons why Director Mueller should break his lunch date:

Apologetics for terrorism: The U.S. government years ago formally certified Hamas and Hezbollah to be terrorist groups; AMC sings their praises.

In 2000, Abdurahman Alamoudi, the group's longtime executive director, exhorted a rally outside the White House with "We are ALL supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akhbar! . . . I am also a supporter of Hezbollah." In January, Alamoudi participated - alongside leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and al Qaeda - in a Beirut conference whose communique called for a boycott of American products.

The American Muslim Council also has ties to other terrorists. For example, Jamal Barzinji, whose Virginia house and business were raided by federal authorities in an anti-terrorism investigation three months ago, is on the AMC board and will be on the podium at the forthcoming AMC conference.

In December 2000, AMC's Dallas chapter gave an award to Ghassan Dahduli. Eleven months later, he was deported from the United States on account of his connections to al Qaeda and Hamas.

In addition, Alamoudi has vehemently defended Omar Abdul Rahman, the blind sheikh now imprisoned for his role in New York-area terrorism. And AMC has both held press conferences supporting Sudan's National Islamic Front (a Department of State-designated terrorist group) and, in 1992, hosted the NIS's leader on a visit to the United States.

Helping fund-raise for terrorism: The Holy Land Foundation is one of the main American conduits of money to Hamas; not surprisingly, AMC has lavished praise on it, bestowing an award on it for a "strong global vision." When President Bush closed Holy Land after 9/11 for collecting money "used to support the Hamas terror organization," AMC responded by condemning the president's act as "particularly disturbing . . . unjust and counterproductive."

Run-ins with the law: AMC leaders have a long and colorful history of legal problems. Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown), a one-time president of AMC's executive board, has the nearly unique distinction of having been listed not just once but twice as one of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Oh, and today he is sitting out a life sentence without parole for murdering a policeman.

Other employees have less horrible but still troubled resumes. For example, AMC's current director, Eric Vickers, has been admonished, sanctioned or suspended by courts over a 10-year period due to his faulty practice of law.

Hostility to law enforcement: Even after 9/11, AMC's Web site linked to a document, "Know Your Rights" that advises "Don't Talk to the FBI." Indeed, AMC has fervently opposed successive administrations' efforts to stave off terrorism.

And Vickers personally has, to put it delicately, a strained relationship with law enforcement. In his youth, he admits, he was "against the cops." He remains hostile but expresses himself more elegantly today, for example, accusing Attorney General John Ashcroft of "using national security as a pretext" to engage in a pattern of ethnic and religious discrimination.

Hostility to the United States: Its apparent patriotism aside, AMC harbors an intense anti-Americanism. "Let us damn America," Sami Al-Arian, a featured speaker at recent AMC events, has declaimed.

Alamoudi, the longtime executive director, has dilated on the agony of living in a country he loathes: "I think if we are outside this country, we can say oh, Allah, destroy America, but once we are here, our mission in this country is to change it. There is no way for Muslims to be violent in America, no way. We have other means to do it. You can be violent anywhere else but in America."

Far from being "the most mainstream Muslim group in the United States," the AMC is among their most extreme. That explains why George W. Bush in 2000 returned a $1,000 donation from Alamoudi to his campaign.

Rather than endorse AMC by his presence, Robert Mueller should find other lunch companions next Friday. Then he should put the organization under surveillance, ascertain its funding sources, look over its books, and check its staff's visa status.
LINK

If AMC money isn't good enough for the Bush campaign in 2000, why is the AMC getting invitations to the White House right up through last month?

Grover Norquist says it wasn't Ali Tulbah, though that's apparently news to the AMC. Norquist says that Tulbah, on whose behalf he said Frank Gaffney had dishonored himself with racist and bigoted statements, didn't arrange the AMC meeting, it was done by higher ups at the White House. If that's true, who?

FYI, #131 will start to answer your questions on another thread.

For more, do an FR keyword search on Grover Norquist.

Bumping your #131.

Okay.

Thanks Sabertooth.

At your service.

Regards

Okay, Norquist is a scumbag and his pal Saffuri admitts to funding PA terror (directly or indirectly, whatever) through the HLF even after it was "shut down" by the Government?

Wonder how that happens?

Toss them all in jail, afaiac.

Toss them all in jail, afaiac.

You're ambitious. I'd like to see them barred from the White House, for starters.

RE: Sabertooth's post 131 above

Now we're talking. :) Thanks for the reply. I will read it thoroughly tomorrow when my mind is fresh and I have some quiet around here.

Glancing over your post, I have some questions about your sources.

One day after Bush's inauguration, (Norquist) and Saffuri arranged for Muslim leaders to meet Newt Gingrich and Congressman Tom Davis, head of the National Republican Congressional Committee. Soon Saffuri began regularly appearing at the White House, accompanying imams and heads of Islamic organizations to discuss the faith-based initiative and concerns about law enforcement persecution of Muslims. Suhail Khan, an administration adviser who helps plan Muslim outreach, once served on the Islamic Institute's board. And at one of his regular Wednesday meetings, according to two witnesses, Norquist announced that he had lobbied to get Khan his White House post.
New Republic LINK

New Republic LINK url: http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/CMS/Topics/Leaders/1191043122002.htm
Who is islamicsupremecouncil.org?

Khan was the founder of American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice, the group spearheading the boycott of Starbucks in the United States. Incredibly, Khan's son, Suhail Khan, was the Bush White House's Muslim outreach official last year. He is also a current and founding board member of the Islamic Institute, which openly opposes the new FBI rules, lodging protests with Ashcroft.
Schlussel Column LINK - July 10th, 2002

Schlussel Column LINK url: http://www.factsofisrael.com/load.php?p=http://www.factsofisrael.com/blog/archives/000203.html
Who is factsofisrael.com? I see that the original source link to this article is no longer active. (http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schlussell071002.asp)

Also at the meeting was Khaled Saffuri, head of the Islamic Institute, a group he co-founded with GOP activist Grover Norquist to organize conservative Muslims. The institute has accepted $20,000 in contributions from another Grove Street entity suspected of terrorist connections, the Safa Trust, as earlier reported by Newsweek. Asked for comment, Mr. Norquist, a board member of the institute, confirmed the donation. Mr. Saffuri couldn't be reached.
Glenn R. Simpson - Wall Street Journal

Glenn R. Simpson - Wall Street Journal url: http://www.islamicsupremecouncil.org/CMS/Topics/Leaders/119111662002.htm
Again, who is islamicsupremecouncil.org?

Additionally, he's got one of his organizations renting from another, the Americans for Tax Reform, from which he draw a salary. But not a big one, only $4,800 a year (link).

link url: http://fenstemakers.blogspot.com/2002_03_24_fenstemakers_archive.html
Never heard of 'em. Who is Arthur Fenstemaker? This is a credible source? Is this from a blog?

Norquist's various organizations give him a great deal of clout, which enhance his reputation as a lobbyist. In the late 1990s, for example, he took in $120,000 annually from Microsoft alone (link).

link url: http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/JF98/silverstein.html
LOL! Mother Jones - credible?! On this one being a "credible source", surely you're joking! No need to convince me otherwise. You can't.

I realize it is not your responsibility to fill me in on the organizations I'm not familiar with, but since you used them as your somewhat credible source links, any information you can provide as to their ownership and politics would be greatly appreciated if you feel inclined to provide it. I think this is important since we are expected to rely on their integrity in leaving the original articles/quotes intact. A link to the original source would be better, but that's not always possible with the way internet sites frequently move or delete their articles.

Like I said before, I'll take a much closer look at this tomorrow. Thanks for repeating yourself and taking the time to look this up for me. I sincerely appreciate it. :)

Had a scare there when I read the title. Thought "leads to exile" might of meant to one of those who has been doing the thankless duty of bringing the news to the forum!!!

Keep up the good job. Please add me to a ping list if you have one.

About the Schlussel and New Republic columns: they are reposts of articles that either are no longer linked or require subscriptions.

The Mother Jones and blog info I just tossed in at the end. Stuff I came across as I was clicking around. The blog gives another subscriber source for its info. I came across a lot of references to Norquist's lobbying, but the MJ article was the only one that gave a dollar value.

While it's appropriate to give some sources more credibility than others, and skepticism can be healthy, I think it's important not to automatically dismiss them out of hand.

The Islamic Supreme Council has a reputation of being a more genuinely moderate Islamic organization, though they're unable to get into the game in Washington. I haven't looked at them enough to have a fully formed opinion, though I've seen them condemn terrorism in ways that we're not used to seeing from that quarter. They're also critical of some of the radical groups that have Norquist's loyalty, and have been shut out by Norquist's gatekeepers.