Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily has been making a big deal out of its new WND-published book, "Muslim Mafia," which editor Joseph Farah claims documents the Council of American-Islamic Relations' "associations and support for known terrorists and its relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood – the same organization that spawned al-Qaida, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Hezbollah."
The heart of the book is, in Farah's words, "12,000 pages of compelling internal documents gathered in the daring covert penetration of CAIR." Another WND article goes on to describe the plan to get those documents as "a real-life, heart-pounding thriller."
Only, it's not really that compelling.
As Talking Points Memo details, the key takeaway from the book is a claim that "is infiltrating Capitol Hill with undercover interns" -- particularly ironic when you consider those "12,000 pages of compelling internal documents" were obtained by an "intern" infiltrating CAIR.
And those documents ultimately didn't reveal all that much. As CAIR president Ibrahim Hooper told TPM, "This guy spied on us for months, and the most they can come up with is that we're doing ordinary lobbying work on Capitol Hill?"
CAIR is accusing the "intern" of stealing property. Farah's response is that the documents were legally obtained because the intern "was asked to shred documents he believed might be criminal evidence … and involve matters of national security. On advice from counsel, he collected those documents and preserved them. None of the documents were 'stolen.' ... They were, in fact, handed to him by CAIR employees for destruction."
WND also appears to be taking refuge in the claim that "it is a federal and state crime to participate in the destruction of evidence of a crime if reasonable suspicion exists the documents are evidence of criminal activity." But lobbying activities of the kind the documents show CAIR was involved with are not "criminal activity."
