Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has asked the Internal Revenue Service to investigate whether the Council on American-Islamic Relations illegally solicited or received funds from foreign governments and agents.
In a letter to IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman, Wolf said he was pleased that CAIR’s tax-exempt status had been revoked over the organization’s failure to file disclosure reports. Nevertheless, Wolf said, alluding to CAIR executive director Nihad Awad, “I am concerned that Awad and CAIR may be soliciting — and receiving — funds from other unsavory foreign governments and organizations, including some that may be sponsors of terror.”
CAIR describes itself as a civil rights group that promotes justice and mutual understanding. Federal prosecutors have traced CAIR’s origins to a U.S. support network for the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which at the time of CAIR’s founding in the mid-1990s was conducting a campaign of suicide bombings against Israel.
Wolf is chairman of the Commerce-Justice-science Appropriations subcommittee, which funds key counterterrorism agencies.
