The Biden-Harris administration is stonewalling a congressional probe into 20 anti-Israel nonprofit groups with suspected links to money laundering and terrorism financing, the Washington Free Beacon has learned. Lawmakers are teasing a subpoena as a result.
Congress initiated the probe in mid-May, instructing the Treasury Department to hand over "suspicious activity reports" related to organizations that are bankrolling "illegal and antisemitic activities" across America, including on college campuses and in major cities nationwide. Those organizations include Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Lawmakers say the financial reports are vital to their oversight investigation. More than three months after lawmakers first requested the documents, the Treasury Department still "has not produced" a single record related to the investigation, according to Reps. James Comer (R., Ky.) and Virginia Foxx (R., N.C.), the respective chairs of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability and Committee on Education and the Workforce.
If the Biden-Harris administration continues to impede the investigation, the lawmakers are prepared to subpoena the relevant records, according to a letter sent Wednesday to the Treasury Department and exclusively obtained by the Free Beacon.
The ongoing investigation, first reported by the Free Beacon, is the most extensive GOP-led probe into anti-Israel unrest across the country and could unearth explosive evidence that several of the leading organizations behind the movement are engaged in prohibited financial activities. CAIR, for example, was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2009 court case related to illicit funding streams for Hamas.
SJP, AMP, and CAIR are already accused of serving as Hamas’s propaganda arm in the United States and having links to radical overseas organizations. AMP and SJP are being sued by Israeli terror victims who allege the anti-Israel groups serve "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas."
Other organizations named in the probe include Jewish Voice for Peace, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Tides Foundation, George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Adalah Justice Project, and Samidoun.
Comer and Foxx say that many of the groups named in the investigation have continued their "illegal and antisemitic activities"—which included a massive protest outside of the U.S. Capitol during Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s July speech before Congress—since they launched the probe.
Four of the groups currently under investigation—the Westchester Political Action Committee Foundation (WESPAC Foundation), Samidoun, Jewish Voice for Peace, and The People’s Forum—sponsored and participated in those violent protests, which saw multiple D.C. landmarks vandalized with pro-Hamas graffiti. Agitators also released maggots into Netanyahu's hotel.
"The Palestinian Youth Movement, whose fiscal sponsor is WESPAC Foundation and regularly organizes events with Samidoun, recently took credit for releasing maggots and activating fire alarms in the Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was staying," the lawmakers wrote. "The same day, Members of Jewish Voice for Peace illegally occupied the Cannon House Office Building, which resulted in the arrest of more than 200 people."
The following day, meanwhile, The People’s Forum organized mass demonstrations that "quickly devolved into vandalism of monuments and assault on federal law enforcement officers" as Netanyahu addressed Congress.
As these groups wreak havoc across the country, the Biden-Harris administration continues to obstruct the House probe, making it virtually impossible for lawmakers to perform their oversight work.
The Treasury Department asked the lawmakers in June to narrow the scope of the probe and were granted that permission, according to Foxx and Comer. The retooled request encompassed "fewer than 50 responsive documents," but the Biden-Harris administration has failed to deliver any of the promised information.
"Moreover, despite multiple requests by the Committees, Treasury has been unable to provide a timeframe for when it anticipates producing even these more limited records," the lawmakers wrote.
The ongoing delay will be met with a subpoena if the Treasury Department continues to drag its feet.
"Considering the serious nature of recent illegal and antisemitic events related to entities named in this investigation, it is imperative that Treasury immediately cooperate and provide the requested documents," they write, giving the Biden-Harris administration an Aug. 28 deadline to turn over all the requested documents. "If Treasury continues to fail to cooperate with this investigation voluntarily, the Committees are prepared to utilize other means to obtain this information, including use of compulsory process."
Access to the department's suspicious activity reports, which are at the heart of the probe, would enable federal investigators to ferret out financial information about those "connected to the organizations propping up these illegal encampments on university campuses," Comer said when launching the probe.
In addition to AMP, SJP, and CAIR, the probe centers on large foundations like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has doled out around $3.4 million to Hamas-allied groups since 2018, including an Israeli-designated Palestinian terror group.
Soros’s Open Society Foundations, one of the largest financial conduits to left-wing groups, has awarded hundreds-of-thousands of dollars to groups lobbying Congress to pressure Israel into a ceasefire.
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