The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is to reveal its donors after its defamation lawsuit against a former employee failed, The New York Post reported.
Former CAIR employee Lori Saroya filed a defamation complaint against the group after it dropped a lawsuit against her. CAIR’s lawsuit accused Saroya of a “defamation campaign” after she claimed the entity is funded by terrorist groups.
U.S. Magistrate Judge David Schultz ruled that the “thrust of CAIR’s allegations against Saroya in the 2021 complaint is that Saroya falsely implied CAIR received funding from foreign governments and terrorists when she stated CAIR accepted ‘international funding through their Washington Trust Foundation.’”
According to Schultz, “CAIR points to no public admission that it received funding from terrorists or that it received funding through the Washington Trust Foundation” but “discovery into these matters is proportionate to the needs of the case.” He added that “CAIR has not shown that the burden or expense of the proposed discovery outweighs its likely benefit, or that it unwarrantedly taxes its resources.”
Jeffrey Robbins, Saroya’s lawyer, called the ruling the “mother of all legal boomerangs.”
Robbins explained that the ruling compels CAIR to “turn over evidence about everything from fundraising practices, such as having raised money from foreign sources and concealed it; whether it deceived donors; whether it mismanaged donor money; whether it retaliated against employees or threatened to retaliate against employees for raising concerns about sexual harassment or the like.”
The White House ended its ties with CAIR last year after the group celebrated the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
CAIR’s executive director, Nihad Awad, said at the time that he was “happy” to see people “breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land, and walk free into their land, that they were not allowed to walk in.”
“And yes, the people of Gaza have the right to self-defense, have the right to defend themselves, and yes, Israel, as an occupying power, does not have that right to self-defense.”
