CAIR's legal gambit
The amicus curiae brief filed by CAIR in the Holy Land Foundation trial is a curious document. (I wrote about the brief over the weekend in "CAIRless lies.") It purports to object to the government's public identification of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator of the Holy Land Foundation prior to trial. But the government has introduced substantial evidence linking CAIR with the Holy Land Foundation at trial. CAIR's motion and accompanying brief seem to be moot. CAIR waits until the final paragraph of its 55-page brief to confront this problem, arguing that the identification of unindicted co-conspirators is simply unconstitutional. The rules of evidence that authorize the introduction of co-conspirator hearsay into evidence apparently need to be rewritten to suit CAIR. At the Counterterrorism Blog Aaron Mannes has posted related thoughts on "CAIR's legal gambit."
CAIR first opened for business with a $5,000 donation from the Holy Land Foundation. CAIR is understandably concerned that its association with the Holy Land Foundation might give people the right idea about the organization. As CAIR explains in its brief:
[T]he public ‘outing’ of CAIR as an unindicted co-conspirator fundamentally undercuts their [sic] central mission to protect Muslim-Americans’ civil rights and foster an atmosphere of acceptance of Muslims in American society. Any message that CAIR tries to deliver to the American public, will be undercut by the insinuation that they are a criminal terrorist 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.One can only hope.
