The Islamic Society of North America is one of the principal actors among the unindicted co-conspirators named by the government in the government's prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation. The Holy Land Foundation provided financial support to Hamas until the government shut it down in the aftermath of 9/11. This weekend, however, the Department of Justice will be sponsoring a booth at the ISNA convention in Rosemont, Illinois. The HLF prosecution is one of the government's most important prosecutions since 9/11, yet the Justice Department's participation in the ISNA convention effectively undermines the the work that of the United States Attorney's office in Dallas. Unlike the bogus scandal involved in the firing of eight United States Attorney, this is the real deal. Yet the silence is deafening.

We learned of the Justice Department's participation in the ISNA convention earlier this week thanks to Audrey Hudson's page-one Washington Times story. The Justice Department pushed back with a few whispers to Daveed Gartensein-Ross at the Counterterrorism Blog that were shot down by Doug Farah and Steve Emerson at the same site. This morning Jeffrey Imm explains why the Justice Department's fraternizing matters.

Although no organ of the mainstream media has to my knowledge taken note of this story, a few Republican congressmen have. Audrey Hudson reports:

n a letter to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, Reps. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, ranking member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, and Sue Myrick of North Carolina called the Justice Department's involvement a "grave mistake."

"In light of the threat that our nation ... is currently facing from radical jihadists, and because of the president's commitment to fighting the war on terror on all fronts, we believe it is a grave mistake to provide legitimacy to an organization with extremist origins, leadership and a radical agenda," the lawmakers said.

Rep. Peter T. King, New York Republican and ranking member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he agrees that Justice officials should not attend the conference.

"It is absolute insanity for the federal government, especially the Department of Justice, to be giving any credibility at all to a group like the ISNA, which has such strong links to Islamic extremism," Mr. King said.

Justice Department spokesman Erik Ablin said in an e-mail that the department has "received the letter, and we will respond to Reps. Hoekstra and Myrick." He went on to note that the Civil Rights Division and other government agencies — including military recruiters — frequently attend the convention "as part of its outreach and education efforts."

To repeat, this is a bona fide scandal, not the ginned-up variety put on display for petty political purposes in the case of the of eight United States Attorneys.

There is the inevitable local Minneapolis angle to the story as well. Keynoting the ISNA convention will be Minnesota Fifth District Rep. Keith Ellison, the gentleman whom I have come to think of as CAIR's first congressman. CAIR's principals were major contributors to Ellison's campaign and CAIR is, as I noted in "Coming clean about CAIR, another of the unindicted co-conspirators of the Holy Land Foundation.

UPDATE: Frontpage has posted Deborah Weiss's excellent column on ISNA and the Justice Department's participation in its convention.

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