Gavin Newsom’s California helps fund CAIR radical – Latest News
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) presents itself as an innocuous Muslim civil rights group. But CAIR finds itself below growing scrutiny for its previous alleged connections to radical Islam, and for its ongoing rhetorical assist for Hamas.
Last November, Texas Governor Greg Abbott designated CAIR a terrorist group. The following month, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis adopted go well with, citing CAIR’s being listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in a main terrorism financing case twenty years in the past.
But as different states transfer to sideline CAIR, California is embracing it.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), lead by Nihad Awad (above) presents itself as an innocuous Muslim civil rights group. Getty Images
But as different states transfer to sideline CAIR, California, lead by Governor Gavin Newsom, is embracing it. Anadolu through Getty Images
CAIR-CA, the group’s largest statewide affiliate, is flush with taxpayer money. In the final 5 years, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has despatched no less than $41 million in mixed state and federal grants to the group, in response to the Intelligent Advocacy Network (IAN), a California-based nonprofit.
Much of that money, it seems, comes from the federal authorities. And final yr, it was confirmed that the U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review was investigating whether or not CAIR-CA ought to stay eligible for taxpayer funds.
This report — primarily based on a trove of paperwork supplied to us by IAN — reveals good motive for the DOJ to be digging into CAIR-CA.
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It additionally raises critical questions on why Gavin Newsom’s authorities is funding such a radical group.
CAIR was based in 1994 with the ostensible goal of advancing Muslim-American civil rights. The group claims that it “is not and never has been an agent” or affiliate of “any militant group.” But the historic file provides justification to query that characterization.
CAIR’s co-founders, Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad, have been main members of the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. That committee oversaw the creation of three different organizations that “effectively became the US-based Hamas infrastructure … to achieve the goal of supporting Hamas with media, money and political support,” in response to a George Washington University Program on Extremism report.
It additionally raises critical questions on why Gavin Newsom’s authorities is funding such a radical group. Nathan Posner/Shutterstock
In an October 1993 assembly deliberate by the Palestine Committee — secretly monitored by the FBI — individuals allegedly mentioned how to assist Hamas’s efforts in addition to how to help derail the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian management.
A yr later, CAIR was born, with Ahmad and Awad assuming main roles. For 11 years, Ahmad served as CAIR’s national chairman. Awad stays CAIR’s national govt director.
Some of this info got here to gentle during the 2007 Holy Land Foundation trial, which noticed 5 of that charity’s leaders convicted for collectively funneling more than $12 million to Hamas. The investigation uncovered a community of Hamas-linked organizations.
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While CAIR was not prosecuted, the court docket discovered “ample evidence to establish” that it was related to the Palestinian terror group. An FBI Special Agent reportedly testified at trial that CAIR was a “front group for Hamas.”
CAIR-CA leaders have additionally engaged in incendiary rhetoric. On October 7, 2023, the day of Hamas’s terror assault on Israel, Zahra Billoo, govt director of CAIR’s San Francisco workplace, posted to social media: “We are witnessing decolonization.” On November 12, 2023, Hussam Ayloush, the CEO of CAIR-CA, likened Israel to Nazi Germany and mentioned, given the Jewish state’s “occupation” of Palestine, that “Israel should be attacked.”
One would suppose that CAIR’s file would make authorities businesses pause earlier than offering it with public funds. But below Governor Gavin Newsom, California’s state authorities has seemingly by no means met a “marginalized group” it didn’t wish to bathe with different people’s money. CAIR-CA is rolling in tax {dollars}.
While CAIR was not prosecuted, the court docket discovered “ample evidence to establish” that it was related to the Palestinian terror group. EPA
In 2022, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) awarded CAIR-CA $7.2 million in federal funds through a state program to present immigration-related legal help. For its half, CAIR-CA pledged to serve roughly 1,800 people by means of September 2024, and earlier this yr, claimed to have fulfilled that promise “across . . . various subgrantees.”
According to IAN, a public information request submitted to the CDSS didn’t affirm how many legal circumstances have been dealt with as half of the grant; in its most up-to-date annual report, CAIR-CA mentioned that it had helped “dozens of Afghan families” by means of the identical project. In September 2025, CDSS rubberstamped an further $23 million in federal funds for CAIR-CA.
In 2024, CAIR-CA’s IRS filings revealed that it had distributed more than $4 million in subgrants to 39 organizations. Among these sub-grantees have been numerous teams with Islamist ties.
For instance, CAIR-CA sub-granted roughly $185,000 to California chapters of the Muslim American Society (MAS). George Washington University’s Program on Extremism identifies MAS as an open “Brotherhood legacy group” within the U.S. In 2004, a high MAS official estimated that just about half of the group’s activists have been Muslim Brotherhood members. (MAS, which didn’t reply to our request for remark, claims to have “no affiliation” with the Muslim Brotherhood.)
CAIR-CA additionally sub-granted $30,000 to the Islamic Society of Orange County, which has ties to an particular person related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In 1992, ISOC’s director invited Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, also called the “Blind Sheikh,” to ship a lecture, during which he reportedly “dismissed” nonviolent interpretations of jihad. A yr later, Rahman was charged with seditious conspiracy for his connection to the assault. (ISOC didn’t reply to our request for remark.)
In 2024, CAIR-CA sub-granted $117,000 to California “relief” chapters of the Islamic Circle of North America. ICNA was initially set uped as a U.S. affiliate of the Jamaat-e-Islami motion, whose founder’s ideology influenced the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. In addition, in 2000, a former ICNA president penned an article that seemingly endorsed the institution of an Islamic caliphate within the U.S. (ICNA didn’t reply to our request for remark.)
For instance, CAIR-CA sub-granted roughly $185,000 to California chapters of the Muslim American Society (MAS). Getty Images
CAIR-CA has claimed, nonetheless implausibly, that it has no control over the choice of its sub-grantees. In January 2026, the director of CAIR-CA, Hussam Ayloush, wrote to a congressional committee claiming that his group “had no input or role” in figuring out the sub-grantees. Instead, he urged that CDSS had chosen them.
“Ayloush personally signed every one of these ALSP grants as executive director of CAIR-LA,” a spokesman for the Network Contagion Research Institute and IAN informed the New York Post. “[A]n entity contractually charged with administering funds and subgranting services necessarily plays a role in identifying subgrantees and their performance under the grant.”
In response to our request for remark, a CAIR-CA spokesman known as allegations towards the group “baseless” and “part of a broader defamation campaign.” “All contributions and grants that CAIR California receives are fully reported, accounted for, and used strictly for their intended purposes,” he mentioned, “subject to rigorous internal and external auditing and reporting. This transparency is why both private and public funders have worked with us and continue to do so.”
In March 2025, IAN requested that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launch an investigation into CAIR-CA, stating that a “forensic audit” was needed to find out the scope of the group’s “financial misconduct, compliance [breaches], and support for terrorism.” Three months later, the DOJ confirmed that an investigation was underway, in correspondence with IAN.
The failures of California’s state authorities current an alternative for the Trump administration. If the DOJ have been formally and completely to revoke CAIR-CA’s accreditation with the Executive Office for Immigration Review — a standing that the group depends on to obtain federal immigration funds — then tax {dollars} at the moment flowing into its coffers could be halted.
In different phrases, the answer is easy: flip off the faucets.
Ryan Thorpe is an investigative reporter on the Manhattan Institute. Christopher F. Rufo is a senior fellow on the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and the creator of America’s Cultural Revolution.
