The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) won't say what it plans to do with thousands of dollars in campaign donations it received from an accused terror financier.
Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari gave $15,250 to the NRCC since 2002, according to FEC records published on the Web site opensecrets.org.
On Friday, Alishtari pled not guilty to funding terrorism and other crimes, including financial fraud.
The NRCC is the main political group dedicated to helping the Republican party win seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Reached Monday morning for comment, an NRCC spokeswoman declined to discuss the matter on the record.
The indictment against Alishtari unsealed in Manhattan federal court Friday charges him with providing material support to terrorists by transferring $152,000 between banks to allegedly be used to purchase night-vision goggles and other equipment needed for a terrorist training camp.
Alishtari, aka Michael Mixon, was paid for his efforts to collect and transfer the funds, which included $25,000 sent from a bank in New York to a bank in Montreal, Canada, the indictment alleges.
Police and FBI agents arrested Alishtari in New York City on Friday. A day earlier, agents raided his Ardsley, N.Y. home, according to the "Lower Hudson Journal News." When a reporter for the paper reached a woman claiming to be Alishtari's wife on Friday and informed her of the charges, she cried and said he was innocent, the paper reported.
The NRCC would not confirm it had received donations from Mr. Alishtari, or that he had received numerous awards from the organization, as is claimed by an online list of personal accomplishments that appears to have been posted by Mr. Alishtari.
The list says he was made a life member of the NRCC's "Inner Circle" and was named New York State Businessman of the Year by the group in 2003 and 2004.
The NRCC "Businessperson of the Year" fundraising campaign, which gave such "awards" to at least 1,900 GOP donors, has been derided as a telemarketing scam by political watchdogs.
Read Brian Ross' previous investigation on the NRCC's "Person of the Year" fundraising campaign.
The online list also claims Alishtari was appointed to the president's "USNRCC White House Business Advisory Group."
An archived Web site for one of Alishtari's companies, GlobalProtector.net, claims it had demonstrated a "Web filter" technology for officials at the Department of Defense's Miami, Fla.-based Southern Command (SouthCom), which coordinates U.S. military operations in Central and South America and the Caribbean and oversees the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention facility.
SouthCom spokesman Steve Lucas would not confirm or deny any contacts between Alishtari and officials there. SouthCom personnel he spoke with said SouthCom does not use the company's software, and could not rule out the possibility they had received a sales pitch from him or another company representative.
A database of unclassified federal contracts at FedSpending.org does not show SouthCom or any other government branch awarded business to Alishtari's company.
A call to the telephone number which had been listed on GlobalProtector's site connects to a recorded message offering the caller to "spark up your days and nights" by calling a 1-800 phone chat line.
...
Yasith Chhun, the head of the Cambodian Freedom Fighters, a group designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization, was indicted in May of 2005 for charges of plotting to overthrow the Cambodian government. He was also, The Los Angeles Times reported, a member of the NRCC's Business Advisory Council:
Before his federal indictment this week [Chuun] had raised $6,550 for the National Republican Congressional Committee and was invited to sit on the group's Business Advisory Council, which has tens of thousands of members nationwide, said Carl Forti, a spokesman for the committee....
Chhun attended the annual meeting of the National Republican Congressional Committee's business advisory council in Washington, D.C., last year. [NRCC Spokesman Carl] Forti said the committee did not know Chhun's group had been designated a terrorist organization, saying it was impossible to do background checks on all its members.
"At this point, the gentleman hasn't been convicted of anything," Forti said. If he is a terrorist, "it's something we need to look at. Clearly, we wouldn't want any leader of a terrorist organization being members of our business advisory council."
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
and here i thought that terrorists wanted the democrats to win. on the flip side, what better cover for a terrorist is there than being a big ticket republican donor?
one thing that occurs to me, and this is probably not a novel thought: bush always says "we are fighting the terrorists abroad so that we don't have to fight them at home". but what we might be doing in iraq is helping the terroists save money on air fare by sending victims straight to them.
_________________ cirlces they grow and they swallow people whole half their lives they say goodnight to wives they'll never know got a mind full of questions and a teacher in my soul and so it goes
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 1:14 am Posts: 37778 Location: OmaGOD!!! Gender: Male
kiddo wrote:
one thing that occurs to me, and this is probably not a novel thought: bush always says "we are fighting the terrorists abroad so that we don't have to fight them at home". but what we might be doing in iraq is helping the terroists save money on air fare by sending victims straight to them.
Yes, but it's a volunteer army. Those guys knew that they were signing up to be victims of terrorist attacks when they joined the national guard to pay for college.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
Something tells me that those dollars have not been frozen by the DoJ.
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:19 pm Posts: 39068 Location: Chapel Hill, NC, USA Gender: Male
LittleWing wrote:
I can think of a couple reasons why this is news.
Because this administration can't even keep terrorists out of the White House, let alone US streets, airports, and ports?
_________________ "Though some may think there should be a separation between art/music and politics, it should be reinforced that art can be a form of nonviolent protest." - e.v.
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