Two weeks ago I reported here exclusively at PJM that the Department of Justice had scuttled the terror finance prosecution of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) co-founder Omar Ahmad, not due to any insufficiency of the legal case but to protect the Obama Administration from embarrassment and to prevent inflaming the Muslim Community. My report was followed up with a letter from House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Peter King (R-NY) sent to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding answers about why the prosecutions were dropped.
And this past Sunday, King appeared on Fox News and confirmed our reporting saying that he had spoken directly with the FBI agents and federal prosecutors who had prepared the case against the CAIR co-founder, only to see the political appointees at DOJ scuttle the case over their objections. That prompted a hastily arranged speech by AG Holder on Monday where he responded to these revelations by claiming that terror prosecutions over the past two years are at an all-time high (failing to recognize that prosecution record is the direct result in a corresponding increase in domestic terror incidents).
But according to Josh Gerstein at Politico late Tuesday, AG Holder held another hastily arranged press conference yesterday and admitted that our initial report about DOJ shutting down the prosecution of Omar Ahmad was true, but blaming (as administration officials had leaked to Gerstein last week) the decision on the Bush Administration. According to last night’s Politico article, Holder says that they merely repeated the decision not to prosecute just like the Bush Administration had done when they decided to initially go after the executives of the Holy Land Foundation – a case that resulted in convictions on all 108 counts. A DOJ spokesman also admitted during yesterday’s press conference that the decision had not been made by career officials, but by political appointees (as Gerstein notes, I originally reported that the memo declining Ahmad’s prosecution had been signed by Assistant Attorney General David Kris.
Holder’s claim that they were merely following the Bush Administration’s earlier decision falls apart when considering the objections of the FBI agents and the federal prosecutors in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Dallas who were upset when Holder’s senior staff made the decision. If they were merely repeating the findings of the Bush Administration, why would the FBI agents and federal prosecutors who had prepared the indictments be upset?
But his admission, which vindicates our earlier reporting, will certainly make an interesting appearance that Holder has scheduled with the full House Judiciary Committee this coming Tuesday, May 3rd. Expect Holder to get grilled extensively on this topic.
Stay tuned to Pajamas Media over the next few days for another exclusive bombshell revelation concerning Holder’s DOJ.
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