CAIR's not thwarting terrorism, but evading scrutiny.
Several years ago, Pamela Geller coined the phrase “terror-clowns” to describe the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR should only be taken seriously to the extent that it can harm the public through media pressure and political manipulation. Everything else is hype.A Convenient New Claim
In mid-December 2025, CAIR held an online press conference responding to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s designation of the organization as a terrorist threat. During that press conference, CAIR’s national deputy executive director, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, made an extraordinary claim:
CAIR’s also played a role in keeping Americans safe, including helping federal law enforcement thwart attacks on the American people, including an attack on President Trump during his first term that we helped the FBI to thwart.
For reasons never explained, reporters attending CAIR’s press conference did not follow up with questions about this astonishing assertion.
Now, however, an exclusive report from the Houston Chronicle provides CAIR’s version of events, portraying the organization as a heroic defender of the President of the United States. “Exclusive: Muslim group Greg Abbott deemed a terrorist threat says it helped stop attack on Trump,” by Benjamin Wermund, Houston Chronicle, January 12, 2026.
Media as Myth-Maker
The Reality Behind the Trump Plot
According to CAIR, the group played a “deep” role in stopping a plot involving Hasher Taheb, a man arrested in 2019 and accused of planning attacks on the White House, the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, and a synagogue. Taheb later pleaded guilty and is now serving a 15-year prison sentence.
CAIR claims it helped facilitate meetings between FBI agents and community members who knew Taheb, and that it attempted, with FBI approval, to talk him out of committing violence. This is the extent of CAIR’s alleged heroism.
Why Is CAIR Playing FBI?
That description raises an obvious question: why would a self-described civil rights group attempt to manage an active terrorism case at all? Shouldn’t law enforcement be doing the talking? The suggestion that the FBI would “step back” and allow CAIR to handle a critical stage of a terrorism investigation is either implausible, deeply alarming, or simply ridiculous.
A Familiar Deflection
Mitchell insists CAIR only revealed this story now because of what he called the “ludicrous claims” that CAIR is a terrorist organization. That explanation invites a different question: if CAIR truly played a heroic role in protecting a sitting president, why did it wait years to mention it? Why did this tale of patriotic valor surface only after CAIR found itself under scrutiny? One is left to wonder whether the silence reflected modesty, forgetfulness, or the simpler possibility that nothing of significance actually happened. The Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial, by contrast, was not “ludicrous.” It was the result of years of investigation, and the presiding judge concluded the government had produced “ample evidence” of CAIR’s associations with Hamas.
The Documentary Record CAIR Cannot Erase
CAIR’s leadership continues to deny these associations, but no amount of public relations will erase the documentary record. Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis relied in part on a report from George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, co-authored by Lara Burns, who analyzed the transcript of the notorious 1993 Philadelphia meeting.
That meeting, which the FBI secretly recorded, was a summit of senior Hamas leaders in the United States convened in response to the Oslo Accords. Future CAIR co-founder Nihad Awad attended and spoke at the meeting, urging participants to focus on explaining the “legality” of Hamas. Participants were instructed not to say the word “Hamas,” instead using the coded term “Samah,” which is simply Hamas spelled backwards.
What Abbott Cited — and Why It Matters
Abbott’s designation could allow Texas authorities to pursue legal action against CAIR and restrict state partnerships with institutions that host the organization. The governor’s order also notes that a founding board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter, Ghassan Elashi, was sentenced to 65 years in prison in a terrorism financing case, and highlights statements by CAIR’s current national director, Nihad Awad, praising Hamas-controlled Gaza after the October 7, 2023 attacks.
CAIR insists it is being targeted for criticizing Israel. In fact, CAIR anticipated scrutiny of its Hamas connections months earlier. In a November 2025 internal Zoom meeting, participants were instructed to preemptively discredit critics by labeling them Israeli proxies or “Israel First politicians,” a rhetorical maneuver designed to deflect from substantive questions about the organization’s record. --->READ MORE HERE
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