Before he was named Hillary Clinton’s running mate for the Democratic presidential ticket, Tim Kaine was born in St. Paul, became a governor and senator from Virginia and he also has a history of embracing Islamists.
According to recent articles in Breitbart and The Clarion Project, Kaine had appointed a Hamas supporter to a state immigration commission when he was Governor of Virginia. Kaine also spoke at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect and he received donations from well-known Islamist groups.
During Kaine’s tenure as Governor, he chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. This appointment was criticized by The American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD) a Muslim organization against Islamism and said that Omeish’s appointment was a reckless lack of vetting.
According to it’s website, the AIFD’s mission is to advocate for the preservation of the founding principles of the United States Constitution, liberty and freedom, through the separation of mosque and state. In a 2007 letter written by AIFD’s founder Dr. M. Zudhi Jasser, it read, “Many of Dr. Omeish’s statements and activities in the past have in fact been a manifestation of political Islam and his attempt to use the Muslim community as a tool in a specific Islamist political agenda. This not only violates the core principles of the separation of religion and politics, which is a cornerstone of our nation, but is in fact the main mechanism of influence of transnational Islamism. His public advocacy of ‘jihad’ in the Middle East by co-religionists implicitly via terrorist organizations like Hezbullah or HAMAS against Israel, an ally of the United States, should certainly highlight the toxicity of Islamism as a political ideology– regardless of the ideological jujitsu one uses to define ‘jihad’. This becomes especially concerning in an individual appointed to contribute to a more sound immigration policy because it begs the question: Will this appointee’s point of view be one primarily of American nationalism and security first, or will it be one of transnational global Islamism?”
In a 2008 court filing, federal prosecutors said that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” A 2004 Chicago Tribune investigation confirmed this, as well as MAS’ use of deception to appear moderate. Abdurrahman Alamoudi, a convicted terrorist and admitted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member testified in 2012, “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”
Omeish’s website lists a resume of his Muslim Brotherhood affiliations including President of the National Muslim Students Association (MSA) and serving on the national board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The Justice Department labeled ISNA a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial. Omeish was also the vice president of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, which is a radical mosque with a history of terrorist ties. Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki served as its imam and the mosque was frequented by two of the 9/11 hijackers as well as Nidal Hassan, who was responsible for the Fort Hood shootings. In addition, Omeish was chairman of the board for both the Islamic American University and The Islamic Center of Passaic County. Yousef Al-Qaradawi, a Hamas financier and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader was chairman of the board of the Islamic American University. The Islamic Center of Passaic County is a New Jersey mosque also with terrorist ties. The Department of Homeland Security wanted to deport the imam at this particular mosque for having links to Hamas.
Prior to being appointed by Tim Kaine to the Virginia’s Immigration Commission, Omeish directly expressed extremism and claimed the Muslim Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the Islamic movement.
A videotape from 2000 surfaced where Omeish pledged to help Palestinians who understand “the jihad way is the way to liberate your land.” Afterwards, he denied this was an endorsement of violence.
When a state delegate, in a written letter to then Governor Kaine, warned the governor that MAS had “questionable origins,” a spokesperson for Kaine said the charge was bigotry.
Eventually, Omeish resigned his position on the state immigration commission under much pressure. Kaine acknowledged that Omeish’s statements “concerned him” but obviously didn’t concern him enough to learn about Omeish’s Muslim Brotherhood ties and to properly vet him before appointing him to the commission.
In an interesting tie to Minnesota politics, Omeish has donated approximately $4,950 to Keith Ellison’s congressional campaign from 2006 through 2015, according to the website Islamist Watch, “which illuminates a little-explored facet of Islamist political influence in the United States.” The website goes on to say that by tracking such donations, Islamist Watch seeks to “highlight this hidden concern and hold politicians accountable for accepting funds from individuals, who in the words of the Muslim Brotherhood Explanatory Memorandum, understand that their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western Civilization from within.”
In September 2011, Kaine was a speaker at a “Candidates Night” dinner which was sponsored by the New Dominion PAC that presented a Lifetime Achievement Award to Jamal Barzinji, who is described as a “founding father of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood” by the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch.
According to an article in Clarionproject.org, Barzinji first came to the FBI’s attention in 1987-1988 when an informant inside the Muslim Brotherhood identified Barzinji and his associated groups as being a part of a network of Brotherhood fronts to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The source said that Barzinji and his groups were “organizing political support which involves influencing both public opinion in the United States as well as the United States Government using political action front groups with no traceable ties.”
In 2003, Barzinji’s home was searched as part of a terrorism investigation. A U.S. Custom’s Service Senior Special Agent said in a sworn affidavit that Barzinji and the network of entities he led were investigated because he is not only closely associated with Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ), but also with Hamas. Barzinji was nearly prosecuted, however the Obama justice department dropped plans for indictment.
Barzinji has played a major role in nearly every Brotherhood front in the United States and was vice president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), which was also being investigated for terrorist ties. The group was essentially considered one entity with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad because of Barzinji’s close ties to the PIJ’s operative Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian and his colleagues “would and did seek to obtain support from influential individuals, in the United States under the guise of promoting and protecting Arab rights.”
Barzinji’s use of civil rights advocacy as a means to influence elected officials are glaring when you consider a video from the event that honored Barzinji shows Kaine telling the audience that it was his fourth time at the annual dinner. Kaine thanked his “friends” for helping him in his campaign for lieutenant-governor and governor and he asked them to help his senate campaign.
Clarionproject.com reports that Barzinji’s IIIT donated $10,000 in 2011 to the New Dominion PAC, the organization that held the event honoring Barzinji at which Kaine spoke. The Barzinji-tied New Dominion PAC donated $43,050 to Kaine’s gubernatorial campaign between 2003 and 2005. That figure doesn’t even include other political recipients that assisted Kaine’s campaign. (Barzinji also donated $2,750 to Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison from 2008 to 2013, according to Islamist-Watch.org.)
The New Dominion PAC has extremely strong ties to the Democratic Party in Virginia, with the Virginia Public Access Project raking in almost $257,000 in donations. Interestingly, Barzinji’s grandson served in Governor McAuliffe’s administration and then became the Obama Administration’s liaison to the Muslim-American community.
Tim Kaine and his ties to Esam Omeish and Jamal Barzinji are either extremely careless or he knew about their backgrounds and looked the other way in the hopes of earning more donations and votes.
The choice of Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton’s vice president was seen as a way to boost her campaign’s national security experience, yet she is asking America to trust a candidate with national security expertise who appoints a Hamas supporter to an immigration commission and attends and speaks at dinners that honor a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect.
