Author: Dan Eggen and John Mintz
Publication: Washington Post
Date: January 14, 2004
URL: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14205-2004Jan13.html
Hill Panel Probing Alleged Terror
Ties
The Senate Finance Committee has
asked the Internal Revenue Service to turn over confidential tax and financial
records, including donor lists, on dozens of Muslim charities and foundations
as part of a widening congressional investigation into alleged ties between
tax-exempt organizations and terrorist groups, according to documents and
officials.
The request marks a rare and unusually
broad use of the Finance Committee's power to obtain private financial
records held by the government. It raises the possibility that contributions
to charities such as the Holy Land Foundation or the activities of such
groups as the Muslim Student Association could be subjected to Senate scrutiny.
An IRS official said the agency
expects to comply with the request because the committee clearly has the
statutory authority to examine such records. The request includes leadership
lists, financial records, applications for tax-exempt status, audit materials
and the results of criminal investigations.
The Senate-led probe follows more
than two years of investigations by the FBI, the Treasury Department and
other federal agencies into the activities of Islamic charities suspected
of having ties to al Qaeda; the Islamic Resistance Movement, also known
as Hamas; and other groups designated as terrorist organizations by the
U.S. government. The United States has frozen more than $136 million in
assets allegedly linked to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups and has effectively
shut down the operations of the largest U.S.-based Islamic charities.
"Government officials, investigations
by federal agencies and the Congress and other reports have identified
the crucial role that charities and foundations play in terror financing,"
the committee's leaders, Chairman Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking
Democratic member Max Baucus (Mont.), wrote in a Dec. 22 letter to the
IRS. "We have a responsibility to carry out oversight to ensure charities,
foundations and other groups are abiding by the laws and regulations, to
examine their source of funds, and to ensure government agencies, including
the IRS, are policing them and enforcing the law efficiently and effectively."
But many Muslim leaders and attorneys
for the charities complain that the government's tactics have unfairly
smeared law-abiding Muslims and have dried up financial support for groups
that try to provide medicine, food and other goods to the Middle East and
elsewhere. Several representatives of the groups said the Senate Finance
Committee's probe is needlessly intrusive and will scare away more contributors.
"The Muslim community would view
this as another fishing expedition solely targeting Muslims in America,"
said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for the Council on American- Islamic Relations
(CAIR) in Washington. "Are they now going to start a witch hunt of all
the donors of these now closed relief organizations, so that Muslims feel
they're going to be targeted once more based on their charitable giving?"
Roger C. Simmons, a Frederick, Md.,
lawyer who represents the Illinois-based Global Relief Foundation, whose
assets have been frozen by the government, said: "This kind of blanket
request would further chill the tendency for American Muslims to give money.
As far as the organizations themselves, I'm not sure what else they can
do to them that they haven't already done."
Committee staffers said the investigation
is based not on ethnicity or religious affiliation but rather on concerns
that the groups may have ties to terrorists or their supporters. "This
is not a fishing expedition targeting Muslims," one Senate aide said. "All
the groups we're looking at are suspected of having some connections to
terrorism or of doing propaganda for terrorists. We're not presuming anybody's
guilty."
The Senate Finance Committee is
one of a handful of congressional panels that have the authority to request
information from the IRS that is covered by privacy protections under Section
6103 of the Internal Revenue Code. Although such information has been requested
in the past, including as part of the probe into the Enron Corp. scandal,
committee staffers and outside experts said the scope of this request is
unusual because of its breadth and because it is part of a wide-ranging
terrorism-related investigation.
Donald Alexander, a former IRS commissioner,
said the request "is rather broad," but he added that he expects the committee
will be judicious in releasing any private information to the public.
"The Finance Committee has indicated
its concerns in the past as to whether the IRS has been properly policing
charities, and this is a reflection of that," Alexander said. "They've
done a good job in the past of protecting the information and using it
wisely."
The letter addressed to IRS Commissioner
Mark W. Everson includes a request for 990 forms, which are public documents
that list a group's leaders and large donors, and 1023 forms, which organizations
use to apply for tax exemptions as nonprofit groups. Grassley and Baucus,
who asked that the material be turned over by Feb. 20, also requested "any
and all materials from examinations, audits and other investigations, including
criminal investigations."
The foundations and charities named
by the committee in its request include many that remain targets of ongoing
investigations by U.S. authorities. Among them are the SAAR Foundation
and its affiliated entities, a defunct network of organizations based in
Northern Virginia; Global Relief, whose founder was deported to Lebanon;
and the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the
largest Muslim charity in the United States, which was singled out by President
Bush for allegedly supporting Hamas. Its assets have been frozen.
Other groups on the list include
the Muslim World League, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth and the Islamic
Society of North America.
The latest probe stems from recent
Finance Committee hearings on fundraising and financing by radical Islamic
groups and will be focused on whether the organizations on the list deserve
their tax-exempt status, committee staffers said.
"We want to look into where all
their money comes from," one committee aide said. "Is it from foreign embassies?
Does money come from obscure individuals in the Persian Gulf? We're the
only ones that can look at this."
