The Council on American-Islamic Relations has, since its founding in
1994, served as the Islamist movement in North America's most high-
profile, belligerent, manipulative, and aggressive agency. From its
headquarters in Washington, D.C., CAIR also sets the agenda and tone
for the entire Wahhabi lobby.

A substantial body of criticism about CAIR exists, some of by me, but
until now, the group's smash-mouths and extremists have managed to
survive all revelations about its record. The publication today [if
published on October 15; or "this week" if published subsequently] of
Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to
Islamize America (WND Books) may, however, change the equation.

Written by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, the investigation is
based largely on the undercover work of Gaubatz's son Chris who spent
six months as an intern at CAIR's D.C. headquarters in 2008. In that
capacity, he acquired 12,000 pages of documentation and took 300 hours
of video.

Chris Gaubatz's information reveals much that the secretive CAIR wants
hidden, including its strategy, finances, membership, and internal
disputes, thereby exposing its shady and possibly illegal methods. As
the book contains too much new information to summarize in small
compass, I shall focus here on one dimension - the organization's
inner workings, where the data shows that CAIR's claims amount to
crude deceptions.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad and undercover intern Chris Gaubatz
at CAIR's national headquarters in 2008.

Claim 1: According to Ibrahim Hooper, the organization's
communications director, "CAIR has some 50,000 members." Fact: An
internal memo prepared in June 2007 for a staff meeting reports that
the organization had precisely 5,133 members, about one-tenth Hooper's
exaggerated number.

Claim 2: CAIR is a "grass-roots organization" that depends financially
on its members. Fact: According to an internal 2002 board meeting
report, the organization received $33,000 in dues and $1,071,000 in
donations. In other words, under 3 percent of its income derives from
membership dues.

Claim 3: CAIR receives "no support from any overseas group or
government." Fact: Gaubatz and Sperry report that 60 percent of CAIR's
income derives from two dozen donors, most of whom live outside the
United States. Specifically: $978,000 from the ruler of Dubai in 2002
in exchange for controlling interest in its headquarters property on
New Jersey Avenue, a $500,000 gift from Saudi prince al-Waleed bin
Talal and $112,000 in 2007 from Saudi prince Abdullah bin Mosa'ad, at
least $300,000 from the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic
Conference, $250,000 from the Islamic Development Bank, and at least
$17,000 from the American office of the Saudi-based International
Islamic Relief Organization.

Claim 4: CAIR is an independent, domestic human rights group "similar
to a Muslim NAACP." Fact: In a desperate search for funding, CAIR has
offered its services to forward the commercial interests of foreign
firms. This came to light in the aftermath of Dubai Ports World's
failed effort to purchase six U.S. harbors in 2006 due to security
fears. In response, CAIR's chairman traveled to Dubai and suggested to
businessmen there: "Do not think about your contributions [to CAIR] as
donations. Think about it from the perspective of rate of return. The
investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return
for fifty years."

CAIR Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper and Chris Gaubatz work
CAIR's booth at the Islamic Society of North America meeting in
Columbus, Ohio, in 2008.

Combining these four facts reveals a CAIR quite unlike its public
image. Almost bereft of members and dues, it sustains itself by
selling its services to the Saudi and U.A.E. governments by doing
their ideological and financial bidding.

This in turn raises the obvious question: should CAIR not be required
to register as a foreign agent, with the regulations, scrutiny, and
lack of tax-deductible status that the designation implies? Data in
Muslim Mafia certainly suggests so.

Looking further ahead, I expect CAIR's days are numbered. It's a dirty
institution, founded by Islamic terrorists and with many subsequent
ties to terrorists. Over the years, it has established a long record
of untrustworthiness that includes doctoring a photograph, fabricating
anti-Muslim hate crimes, and promoting suspect polling. It has also
intimidated critics via libel suits, boasted of ties to a neo-Nazi,
and allegedly paid hush money. Eventually, close scrutiny of this
outfit will likely lead to its demise.

That's the good news. Less happy is my expectation that CAIR's
successor will be a more savvy, honest, respectable institution that
continues its work of bringing Islamic law to the United States and
Canada while avoiding the mistakes and apparent illegalities that
render CAIR vulnerable. In that sense, the fight to preserve the
Constitution has just begun.