Prosecutors Named CAIR an Unindicted Co-Conspirator; It Was Never Charged

On Nov. 4, 2026, the Council on American-Islamic Relations and its Michigan chapter congratulated Abdul El-Sayed after his projected victory in Michigan’s U.S. Senate race. The statement has again put long-running CAIR accusations in public view: federal prosecutors once named the organization an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial, but CAIR was never charged and has not been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government.

The congratulations are not evidence that El-Sayed coordinated with CAIR or shares responsibility for accusations aimed at the group. What follows concerns CAIR — national and named chapters — not Muslims as a class and not a newly elected senator.

The election result, separately confirmed

In a joint statement dated Nov. 4, 2026, CAIR and CAIR-Michigan called El-Sayed the first American Muslim elected to the U.S. Senate. National Executive Director Nihad Awad congratulated him “for making history” and for defeating “anti-Muslim hate.” CAIR-Michigan Executive Director Dawud Walid issued a separate statement. The release said CAIR is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that “does not endorse or oppose candidates for public office,” and that CAIR Action is a separate 501(c)(4).

NBC News, citing Associated Press data and the NBC News Decision Desk, projected El-Sayed the winner over Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers. As of 6:07 p.m. ET on Nov. 5, 2026, with 97.7 percent of the expected vote counted, he led 52.5 percent to 45.5 percent. The Washington Post and USA Today reported the same outcome. The unofficial count awaits Michigan’s certification of the midterm elections canvass.

El-Sayed drew separate scrutiny over his own remarks and over Republican claims about the Muslim Brotherhood, which fact-checkers did not substantiate as to him. The Boston Report reviewed what he said during the campaign and those Brotherhood allegations. They are not a substitute for the file on CAIR.

Named in the Holy Land Foundation case, never charged

CAIR, founded in 1994, describes itself as the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization. Its national office is distinct from chapters such as CAIR-Michigan, CAIR-Texas and CAIR-Florida. The main U.S. court file involving the group is not a prosecution of CAIR. It is the Holy Land Foundation case in Dallas.

On Nov. 24, 2008, a jury convicted the Holy Land Foundation and five leaders — Shukri Abu Baker, Mohammad El-Mezain, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader and Abdulrahman Odeh — of providing material support to Hamas, with related conspiracy, money-laundering and tax charges. The Justice Department said they provided about $12.4 million in support to Hamas. CAIR was not a defendant.

Hamas has been a Treasury specially designated terrorist since 1995 and a State Department Foreign Terrorist Organization since Oct. 8, 1997. CAIR does not appear on the State Department list reviewed for this article.

On May 29, 2007, prosecutors attached a “List of Unindicted Co-conspirators and/or Joint Venturers” to their trial brief. The Fifth Circuit later said it named 246 individuals and entities, including CAIR. Judge Jorge A. Solis wrote that the government listed CAIR, the Islamic Society of North America and the North American Islamic Trust as entities that are or were members of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee and/or its organizations.

That listing was an allegation, not a charge. Solis found that publicly naming CAIR violated its Fifth Amendment rights because the list suggested the named parties “are guilty or may be guilty of engaging in terrorist support and/or activity” without a forum to defend themselves. He ordered the list sealed.

He refused to strike the names. “The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations of CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF, the Islamic Association for Palestine (‘IAP’), and with Hamas,” he wrote on July 1, 2009, adding that the evidence “largely predates the HLF designation date” but was still “sufficient to show the association.” The exhibits he described included a July 30, 1994, Palestine Committee agenda listing CAIR, and evidence that founder Omar Ahmad attended a 1993 Philadelphia conference where prosecutors said committee members discussed opposing the Oslo Accords without being seen as aligned with terrorist groups. Those were government exhibits as summarized by the judge, not findings from a trial of CAIR.

A 1991 “Explanatory Memorandum” often cited by critics listed ISNA, NAIT and the Occupied Land Fund, the foundation’s earlier name — not CAIR, which did not yet exist. CAIR-Texas has stressed that point and said the group “is not linked to any external movement, entity, party or government,” including the Muslim Brotherhood.

NAIT appealed; CAIR was not a party. On Oct. 20, 2010, the Fifth Circuit left Solis’s due-process holding in place — the government had not appealed it — unsealed the opinion, and denied expungement. It also said Solis’s “association” discussion went “outside the bounds” of what the motion required. No Rule 801(d)(2)(E) determination involving NAIT was made, so the listing “was simply an untested allegation of the Government.” The findings “do not amount to a ruling that NAIT took part in a criminal conspiracy to support Hamas,” the court wrote, and “[a]ny other conclusion on this record, beyond this narrow determination, would be legally premature.”

In April 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department had determined a prosecution “would not be appropriate,” leaving in place a Bush administration conclusion. The decision “wasn’t necessarily about CAIR as it was about a guy, an individual,” he said. Politico reported that Rep. Peter King identified that person as Omar Ahmad and criticized the declination. A decision not to charge someone is neither a conviction nor a finding that the allegations were false.

The FBI’s outreach restriction

In 2008 the FBI restricted non-investigative outreach with CAIR. A September 2013 Justice Department inspector general summary said the policy was “based in part on evidence presented during the 2007 trial,” that “the evidence at trial linked CAIR leaders to Hamas,” and that CAIR had been named an unindicted co-conspirator. Civil-rights complaints and criminal investigations were not the target of the rule.

FBI Assistant Director Richard C. Powers told Sen. Jon Kyl in an April 28, 2009, letter that the trial “demonstrated a relationship among CAIR, individual CAIR founders (including its current President Emeritus and its Executive Director) and the Palestine Committee,” and a relationship “between the Palestine Committee and HAMAS.” “In light of that evidence, the FBI suspended all formal contacts,” he wrote. The move “was not intended to reflect a wholesale judgment of the organization and its entire membership,” but “until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.” Reports of hate crimes, civil-rights violations or suspicious activity were still encouraged.

The inspector general found uneven field compliance. CAIR-Texas has said it remains disappointed by the freeze and that the listing left it no courtroom in which to clear its name. The 2013 review treated the restriction as then-current policy. The Boston Report did not find a public FBI announcement withdrawing it and is not stating what internal rules apply today.

Awad’s comments and CAIR’s stated position

Awad has also been questioned about his own remarks. In a Sept. 22, 2006, Associated Press interview later carried by NBC News, he was asked about a 1994 statement that he preferred Hamas to the Palestine Liberation Organization. He said it came “before the group engaged in suicide bombings and was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.” “I don’t support Hamas today,” he said. “My position and CAIR’s position is extremely clear — we condemn suicide bombings.”

CAIR-Texas later wrote that the 1994 comment came at Barry University in March 1994, before CAIR was formally founded, and that Awad also said, “There are some radicals. We are not interested in those people.” Hamas’s U.S. designations followed in 1995 and 1997; the group already existed and had used violence before then. Those dates do not convert the remark into a criminal finding against CAIR.

After the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, CNN reported that Awad told a conference he was “happy to see people breaking the siege and throwing down the shackles of their own land,” according to a video posted by the Middle East Media Research Institute. White House spokesman Andrew Bates said, “We condemn these shocking, Antisemitic statements in the strongest terms.” Awad said the comments were taken out of context and that he had condemned “the violence against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7th,” while arguing that occupied people may defend themselves “by just and legal means” and that “targeting civilians is never an acceptable means of doing so.”

CAIR says a statement on its website since 2009 “unequivocally condemn[s] all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the U.S. Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’” That is CAIR’s own position, not an external verdict on whether critics accept it.

UAE, Texas and Florida labels are not a U.S. FTO listing

After the United Arab Emirates included CAIR on a November 2014 terrorist list, CAIR called the decision “shocking and bizarre” and later sought removal through the UAE’s appeal process, the Associated Press reported. News accounts quoted State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke as saying the United States does not consider CAIR a terrorist organization. A foreign list is not a U.S. designation.

On Nov. 18, 2025, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott proclaimed CAIR a “foreign terrorist organization” and “transnational criminal organization” under state authority. On Nov. 20, CAIR-Texas sued Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton, calling the proclamation “unconstitutional and defamatory” and saying state labels “do not constitute federal FTO designations.” Reporting through 2026 described the case as ongoing; sources reviewed here did not show a final judgment.

On Dec. 8, 2025, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued Executive Order 25-244, which a lawsuit said purported to designate CAIR a “terrorist organization” and to deny contracts, jobs, funding and privileges to CAIR and anyone known to give it “material support,” including advice. On Dec. 15, CAIR’s legal arm, the Muslim Legal Fund of America, the Southern Poverty Law Center and co-counsel sued in the Northern District of Florida. That order is also a state executive action, not a State Department listing.

What the record shows

The chronology below is a legal-status table, not a tally of accusations. An unindicted listing is not a conviction. A judge’s association comment is not a jury verdict. A governor’s proclamation is not a federal terrorism designation.

Sources: Justice Department, federal court opinions, FBI letter, inspector general, State Department FTO framework, CAIR statements and later lawsuits; table: The Boston Report.

Prosecutors publicly tied CAIR to a Hamas-support case they tried in Texas. A federal judge found the public naming unlawful and also said the government had produced ample evidence of associations with the Holy Land Foundation, the Islamic Association for Palestine and Hamas. An appeals court said that extra association language was not a criminal adjudication. The FBI cited the same trial evidence when it suspended formal outreach. CAIR was never convicted and is not on the U.S. foreign-terrorist list. It has denied the allegations and condemned terrorism, including by Hamas, in its own statements. Later UAE, Texas and Florida labels are different kinds of government action, and the American ones are being fought in court. None of that is a finding about El-Sayed.

Sources

• CAIR and CAIR-Michigan, congratulatory statement on Abdul El-Sayed, Nov. 4, 2026
• NBC News, Michigan U.S. Senate results, El-Sayed projected winner (AP data, updated Nov. 5, 2026)
• U.S. Department of Justice, Holy Land Foundation convictions, Nov. 24, 2008
• U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, United States v. Holy Land Foundation, No. 09-10875 (Oct. 20, 2010)
• U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, unclassified summary of the FBI-CAIR review, September 2013

Additional sources

• The Washington Post, El-Sayed defeats Rogers in Michigan
• USA Today, El-Sayed wins Michigan Senate race
• FBI Assistant Director Richard C. Powers, letter to Sen. Jon Kyl, April 28, 2009
• Associated Press via NBC News, Sept. 22, 2006 interview with Awad about his 1994 Hamas remark
• CNN, White House condemnation of Awad’s 2023 remarks and his response, Dec. 8, 2023
• CAIR response to the UAE terrorist listing, Nov. 16, 2014
• Associated Press, CAIR seeks removal from the UAE terror list
• U.S. Department of State, Foreign Terrorist Organizations list
• Politico, Holder on the decision not to prosecute a CAIR leader, April 26, 2011
• CAIR Legal Defense Fund, lawsuit announcement against Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Nov. 20, 2025
• CAIR Legal Defense Fund, SPLC and MLFA, lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Dec. 15, 2025
• CAIR-Texas, “Dispelling Rumors About CAIR”
• CAIR-Texas, Oct. 30, 2026 statement that it has never been a State Department-designated FTO
• Religion News Service, July 10, 2026, noting CAIR is not on the State Department terrorist list
• U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Memorandum Opinion and Order, United States v. Holy Land Foundation, No. 3:04-CR-0240-P (July 1, 2009) (Solis, J.)