RFK Jr. Claims He’s Investigating Terrorism Now, Too

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is taking a beat from his busy day job ending the scourge of vaccines and modern medicine to take up a right-wing push attempting to link the largest Muslim civil rights organization in the United States to terrorism. 

The MAHA enthusiast announced last month that HHS was demanding federal action on allegations that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR, and its California and Washington affiliates had misused federal grant funds. “If there is evidence of fraud, abuse, or ties to designated terrorist organizations, we will act,” he wrote on X. 

The post came as a shock at CAIR’s national headquarters in Washington, D.C., because the organization had never received nor solicited federal funding from Health and Human Services.

“Not even a penny,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, national deputy director of CAIR. “[Kennedy] would know that if he had spent any amount of time doing research before he decided to publicly attack us in this way.”

Kennedy’s mystifying crusade appears to be an attempt to satisfy the demands of a group of Republican members of Congress led by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, as an emboldened right wing chomping at the bit to target Muslim Americans dictates the decisions of the executive branch. After Roy and his colleagues argued without evidence that CAIR and its affiliates were connected to international terrorist organizations and had misused federal funds intended to help settle Afghan refugees, Kennedy’s fumbling attempt to address their concerns set off a bizarre chapter in the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on dissent that left the intended targets wondering whether they were under a real investigation or had become pawns in a challenging midterm cycle.

“During election cycles we see the ramping-up of this type of anti-Muslim rhetoric,” said Saher Selod, director of research at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. “Saying we need to investigate CAIR national is following a playbook of trying to motivate a base to come out and vote, and Muslims have become the bait in this moment.”

CAIR, which advocates for the civil rights of Muslims in the United States, has been a thorn in President Donald Trump’s side since his first administration, when the group sued to block his infamous “Muslim ban.” In Trump’s second term, CAIR national and its local chapters have continued to push back against the administration’s anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agenda through the courts and in public statements.

“Saying we need to investigate CAIR national is following a playbook of trying to motivate a base to come out and vote, and Muslims have become the bait in this moment.”

While CAIR national has never received HHS funding, CAIR California and CAIR Washington, which operate separately from the national branch and are overseen by their own boards of directors, have received federal health dollars to provide legal services to Afghan refugees fleeing after the Taliban took power in 2021.

Both chapters vehemently denied any wrongdoing and emphasized the extensive vetting process required by both their respective states and the federal government to use the funds under contention. 

“They won’t get anything out” of an investigation, said Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR California. “It is merely an attempt to create smear and destruction, to silence … the most important American Muslim voices in the country when it comes to issues dealing with Israeli abuses and the U.S. funding of those abuses.”

The allegations levied against CAIR and its local affiliates come amid a larger wave of anti-Muslim attacks as Republicans fight to hold onto power in a midterm cycle where they’re likely to lose seats. In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in December in designating CAIR as a “foreign terrorist organization.” In Tennessee, Republican Rep. Andy Ogles posted on X that “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”

Democrats have hardly been immune from spreading Islamophobic rhetoric. During last year’s New York City mayoral election, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand had to apologize for comments characterizing now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Muslim, as supportive of a “global jihad.” Before winning New Jersey’s June primary, Dr. Adam Hamawy faced attacks from some of his Democratic opponents over a brief 1995 trial testimony he gave for a religious leader convicted of plotting terror attacks, in what Hamawy’s campaign described as well-worn Islamophobic tropes.

Roy, who has been leading the charge against CAIR in Congress, was running his own campaign for Texas attorney general when he sent a letter to Kennedy urging HHS to investigate and suspend CAIR and CAIR California, accusing the organization of having long-standing ties to Hamas and documented “misuse of federal grant funds.” 

In response, CAIR California sent a letter to Kennedy refuting Roy’s claims as “lies, smears and defamatory statements.” The group noted that it was selected and vetted by the state of California to provide these services, and argued that its “use of public funds are fully accounted for, transparent and compliant with its legal obligations.” 

Over a month later, CAIR California received what Ayloush, its executive director, described as an “amicable” and “reassuring” response from HHS. In the letter, obtained by The Intercept, the director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, Paula M. Stannard, said she was directed by Kennedy to respond to CAIR California on his behalf.

“OCR plays a critical part in the effort to ensure that people are able to lead healthy lives free of discriminatory barriers,” Stannard wrote. “OCR’s policy and enforcement efforts continue to protect all Americans from unlawful discrimination; ensure equal access to health and human services and respect the inherent worth and dignity of every person.” 

The letter did not commit to anything, but Ayloush said that he did not get the sense that the secretary would be joining in on what he described as the “bashing of Muslim organizations.” 

So it came as a surprise when only a few days later, the secretary posted about an investigation not only into CAIR California, but also CAIR national and CAIR Washington. 

“There’s an interesting divergence between what he said privately to CAIR California in writing, and then what he said on social media,” Mitchell, the national deputy director, said. 

“No subpoenas, no nothing at all, just this shot across the bow in the court of public opinion.” 

So far, all three organizations told The Intercept that they have not received any correspondence from HHS. “To this point, we have not received any communication from him indicating that he’s looking into anything,” said Mitchell. “No subpoenas, no nothing at all, just this shot across the bow in the court of public opinion.” 

Roy, who founded the Islamophobic “Sharia-Free America Caucus,” thanked Kennedy in June for “investigating CAIR’s alleged ties to the groups such as Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.” 

Imraan Siddiqi, executive director of CAIR Washington, said that accusing Muslim Americans of fraud had become a convenient line of attack politically. He pointed to attacks in Washington state on predominantly Somali Muslim childcare workers after conspiracy theories that Somalis were committing child care grant fraud spread in Minnesota.

“They’ve found a line of attack that some people are responding to or resonates with them,” he said, particularly in an era where social media can easily amplify misinformation for an audience eager to confirm their own biases. 

Hatem Baizan, an Ethnic Studies lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the administration does not need to prove these claims to smear CAIR and its affiliates.

“Facts are immaterial for this current administration,” he said. “The aim is to throw as much dirt as possible, use as many investigative tools as possible with the hope that you have enough delegitimization, enough doubt, to actually get people to distance themselves from CAIR.” 

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