Obama's muslim advisor meets with groups with connections to terrorism

Barack Obama's newest muslim advisor it turns out has met with the executive director of CAIR, an un-indicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial, and Mahdi Bray, director of the MAS.

Why is it, that ties to extremism and terrorism keep popping up for Barack Obama? Dallas News

For the second time in three months, Barack Obama's choice for Muslim affairs advisor has drawn criticism for dealings with extremists -- and both times the controversy has involved North Texas' own Holy Land Foundation case.

Last week, MSNBC reported that in mid-September, newly-appointed Muslim affairs advisor Minha Husaini went to a meeting with a group of Muslim leaders at a hotel in Springfield, Virginia. In attendance were Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Mahdi Bray, the Washington, D.C.-based imam and director of the Muslim American Society's Freedom Foundation.

Both have attended the Holy Land trial, and are pictured above at last October's mistrial (Bray is speaking, and Awad is to his left).

It's not a stretch to say that both men -- fair or not -- are politically radioactive.

....

Awad's group, CAIR, is an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land case. Testimony has revealed that Awad was among a couple dozen Hamas sympathizers -- including some Holy Land defendants -- who met in Philadelphia in 1993 to discuss ways of promoting the Islamist agenda in the U.S. without attracting attention, particular in the wake of the newly signed Oslo Peace Accords.

Prosecutors have used this meeting to help prove their contention that five Holy Land defendants conspired to funnel more than $12 million to Hamas, in violation of U.S. laws banning support to terrorist groups.

Just last week, FBI Special Agent Lara Burns testified that one of the results of that meeting was the formation of CAIR.[...]

Mahdi Bray has been a frequent spectator at both Holy Land trials, offering support to the defendants, whom he and other supporters say are victims of overzealous prosecution by a Bush administration bent on doing Israel's dirty work.

Bray has been criticized by some for being an apologist for terrorists, particularly for his condemnation of Israel's 2004 missile strike in the Palestinian Gaza Strip that killed Hamas' spiritual founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.