CAIR appeals to Conyers

This past summer CAIR filed a motion to be stricken from the government’s designation of it as an unindicted co-coconspirator in the Holy Land Foundation prosecution. At NRO I took a look at the brief CAIR submitted in support of the motion in “Coming clean about CAIR.” In its brief, CAIR asserts that being named an unindicted co-conspirator of the Hamas-friendly Holy Land Foundation has been bad for business. CAIR also asserts that it has become difficult to continue to hold itself out as a civil rights organization: “The American public and the media which CAIR uses to deliver its message will no longer believe in the veracity of such message because CAIR will be perceived as a terrorist front organization.”
CAIR’s motion remains pending in the Holy Land Foundation case, but CAIR doesn’t have much confidence that it will be granted. Bill Gertz reports that CAIR has sought help from House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers to pressure the Justice Department to alter its designation as an unindicted co-conspirator in the HLF prosecution. Gertz quotes CAIR’s rendition of history for Conyers, to the effect that he “remember[s] many of these abusive practices from the McCarthy era and the civil rights movement.”
Gertz injects a note of reality via Steven Emerson:

Steven Emerson, executive director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, said the secret collaboration between CAIR and Mr. Conyers raises concerns over the lawmaker’s support for “a group unambiguously proven to be part of the Muslim Brotherhood-Hamas infrastructure.”
“This combination demonstrates the degree to which radical Islamic groups have insinuated themselves into the highest reaches of the U.S. government by using deceit,” he said.

Is there anyone who thinks that bringing political pressure to bear on the United States Attorney’s Office to influence its handling of the Holy Land Foundation case might be…improper?

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