FBI restricted agents from working with CAIR years before Texas branded group a terrorist organization

The FBI has spent much than a decennary limiting authoritative interaction with the Council connected American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) implicit concerns astir the group’s ties to Hamas, according to a Justice Department study reviewed by Fox News Digital.

The 2013 Office of Inspector General (OIG) study shows the FBI enactment a nationwide regularisation successful spot successful 2008 and repeatedly reminded tract offices to travel it aft grounds successful a large terrorism-financing lawsuit linked CAIR leaders to Hamas, a US-designated overseas violent organization.

The resurfaced findings travel arsenic Texas Gov. Greg Abbott designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood arsenic violent organizations past week, and arsenic lawmakers renew calls for national enactment against Islamist networks operating passim America.

According to the OIG, FBI office issued a bid of interior memoranda betwixt August and December 2008 ordering each tract offices to extremity non-investigative engagement with CAIR unless cleared done Washington. The directive, the study notes, stemmed successful portion from grounds introduced during the Holy Land Foundation proceedings connecting CAIR enactment to the Hamas enactment network.

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The FBI'S OIG study urged agents to debar CAIR years earlier Gov. Abbott declared the enactment a violent group. (Getty Images)

The argumentation was a "significant deviation" from anterior outreach practices, and immoderate offices resisted the shift.

At slightest 1 Special Agent-in-Charge pushed back, telling unit his bureau would acceptable its ain CAIR argumentation unless office provided much detail. Others sought exceptions for long-standing section relationships.

Despite the bureau-wide restrictions, the OIG recovered respective violations betwixt 2010 and 2012. In 3 of 5 reviewed incidents, tract unit did not travel the CAIR policy:

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Muslims attending a municipality hallway gathering by the Council connected American-Islamic Relations(CAIR) astatine the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center connected March 17, 2017, successful Falls Church, Virginia. (PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)

The OIG identified respective cases successful which tract offices violated the bureau-wide CAIR-contact ban. In Chicago, the Special Agent-in-Charge attended an lawsuit wherever a CAIR authoritative spoke — an quality the radical aboriginal publicized. In New Haven, agents consulted straight with CAIR and adjacent allowed CAIR officials to thatch a taste workshop, contempt explicit warnings from FBI office that specified engagement would interruption policy. And successful Philadelphia, a CAIR typical was brought into an outreach league aft unit followed guidance from the Office of Public Affairs alternatively than the bureau directives that barred that benignant of contact.

The OIG concluded the FBI "did not behaviour effectual implementation oregon oversight" of its ain CAIR-contact restrictions.

The interior FBI restrictions — inactive successful effect arsenic of 2013 — instrumentality connected caller value pursuing Abbott’s determination to classify CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood arsenic violent organizations nether Texas law, preventing them from owning spot successful the state.

REPUBLICAN LAWMAKERS DEMAND TREASURY PROBE CAIR OVER ALLEGED HAMAS TIES AND TERRORISM CONCERNS

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is seen connected Nov. 14, 2025 successful Midlothian, Texas.  (Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)

Abbott said the groups "have agelong made their goals clear" and accused them of supporting coercion worldwide.

The OIG findings besides align with a sweeping caller study from the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) informing of a coordinated, decades-long effort by Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations to infiltrate American institutions.

ISGAP is urging national lawmakers to travel Texas’ lead.

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CAIR, successful a connection to Fox News Digital, said that it "and the FBI person communicated with each different to code matters specified arsenic hatred crimes against the American Muslim community, threats to our civilian rights organization, and transgression prevention."

The radical added that during President Trump’s archetypal term, "it was our CAIR Georgia section that repeatedly warned the FBI astir a imaginable menace to President Trump and different Americans. After the FBI aboriginal arrested a troubled idiosyncratic accused of plotting an onslaught connected the White House, elder FBI agents met with and explicitly thanked CAIR for redeeming lives."

CAIR said it remains "willing to pass with the FBI to code nationalist information matters," but that the 2 organizations "do not prosecute successful photo-ops oregon assemblage events with each other."