A Senate hearing on Wednesday presented evidence that a Muslim Brotherhood-connected network in the United States is built to support Hamas and expand influence through American institutions.
The “Hidden in Plain Sight: Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood Network in America” hearing, led by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), focused on how the network was constructed and the threats it poses to the United States. The network continues to operate with overlapping leadership, shared ideology, and sustained reach into education, politics, and nonprofit advocacy.
At the center of the hearing was the 2008 Holy Land Foundation case, which remains the largest terrorism financing prosecution in American history. In 2008, the Holy Land Foundation, then the largest Muslim charity in the United States, and five of its leaders were convicted on 108 counts of providing material support to Hamas, money laundering, and tax fraud. Sentences reached 65 years.
At the time, prosecutors said the trial exposed a broader network of organizations operating inside the country. That structure included the Islamic Society of North America, the North American Islamic Trust, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
A 1991 document known as the Explanatory Memorandum, recovered by the FBI in 2004 in Annandale, Virginia, described the Brotherhood’s work in North America as “a grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers.” The document instructed adherents to master coalition building and to work with existing Islamic organizations.
CAIR was founded in 1994 by individuals who participated in a 1993 Philadelphia meeting of Palestine Committee leaders that the FBI recorded. At that meeting, participants discussed supporting Hamas while infiltrating American universities, media, and politics.
They spoke of shaping school curricula so that children would not “grow up surrendering to the idea of peace with Jews.” Nihad Awad, who took part in the meeting, remains CAIR’s executive director. Witnesses said CAIR was created in significant part to defend and protect other elements of the Hamas support network.
Lara Burns, the retired FBI special agent who led the Holy Land Foundation investigation, told the subcommittee that CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2008 case and has never formally disavowed the Holy Land Foundation. Asked whether evidence from that prosecution would still place CAIR on a list of organizations warranting further investigation, she answered, “It would.” She added that the underlying conspiracy still exists and the threat is growing.
After the Islamic Association for Palestine was driven into bankruptcy through civil liability for supporting terrorism, its leadership reappeared in other groups. Osama Abu Irshaid, who had worked for both the Islamic Association for Palestine and the United Association for Studies and Research, later became a leader of American Muslims for Palestine.
During the hearing, Cruz mentioned that Abdul El-Sayed, who won Michigan’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Tuesday, has family ties to this network. El-Sayed’s father-in-law previously served as president of CAIR Michigan and sat on the founders committee of the Islamic Society of North America.
Kyle Shideler, a counterterrorism analyst, told lawmakers that CAIR’s creation and bylaws received explicit approval from Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt. Documents from the Holy Land Foundation case showed that, at one time, one in every four American mosques was under the influence of the Hamas-linked North American Islamic Trust.
Arielle Klepach, a former federal prosecutor, said that CAIR New Jersey distributed a curriculum on 9/11 to nearly 30 public school districts that framed the attacks as a predictable consequence of U.S. foreign policy.
Cruz then referenced troubling statements made by CAIR officials after the October 7, 2023, attacks. Awad declared he was “happy to see people breaking the siege,” and on the day of the massacre, the executive director of CAIR’s San Francisco chapter posted, “We are witnessing decolonization” and later referred to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as a martyr.
CAIR California’s CEO Hussam Ayloush said, “Israel should be attacked.” He also noted that CAIR and related groups assisted the broader network as it coordinated legal support and strategic guidance for the campus encampments and riots that spread to more than 100 campuses across the country.
Witnesses described the campus activity as the product of an organized network that has spent decades building influence inside American universities.
Burns confirmed that CAIR personnel appeared during the 2004 FBI search of a senior operative’s home in Virginia and attempted to obstruct the seizure of documents that formed a major archive of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas support network.
Cruz closed by stating that the network’s institutional presence through nonprofits, taxpayer funded grants, campus organizing, and legal advocacy requires accountability “no matter how many tax exemptions, charitable registrations, or civil rights letterheads they hide behind.”
He called on the Justice Department, the Treasury Department, and the FBI to act on the evidence presented.
Written questions for the record are due by August 12, with answers to written inquiries expected by August 26.
.png)
.png)
