October 22, 2007, - 12:19 pm

Sadly, Another Schlussel Prediction Comes True: Holy Land Foundation HAMAS Financiers Acquitted, Yet Another “Justice” Dept. Failure

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Don’t say I didn’t warn you about this. I predicted the Justice Department would lose their case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, the Muslim charity that financed HAMAS in concert with CAIR, the Muslim Brotherhood, and virtually every mainstream American Islamic group. And, sadly, I was right.
This morning, the HLF defendants were acquitted on many charges, and on the rest the jury was not unanimous, which means a hung jury–yet another victory for these blantant terrorist financiers–three of the five defendants were acquitted of most of the charges against them. The judge declared a mistrial on those counts, but the fact that the majority of those jurors polled voted for acquittal says all we need to know. We lost, they won. And our “warriors” in the courtroom stink.

hlfterroristscelebrate.jpgholylandfoundation.jpg

Holy Land Foundation HAMAS Financiers

Celebrate Victory Over Impotent Justice Department

I’ve written repeatedly about Justice Department failures to successfully prosecute terrorists. They’ve lost the Sami Al-Arian case (another acquittal/DOJ loss I predicted), the Sami Omar Al-Hussayen case, the Mohammed Salah case, etc., etc., ad nauseam. All of these were incredible–but predictable–failures for the so-called domestic War on Terror. I say “so-called” not because I don’t believe these are terrorists. They definitely are. I say “so-called” because the Justice Department only goes after these parties after years, decades have elapsed. And, even then, it does so only when its hand has been forced, and does so half-heartedly.
In this case, as in the Al-Arian case, the prosecutors threw in so much extraneous garbage into the case that confused jurors’ eyes glazed over from a mostly-diluted, orginally strong case.
Further, the Holy Land Foundation and its employees and associates should have been prosecuted a decade ago, but they weren’t because the government didn’t want to do a damned thing. Then, it was Clinton at the White House. But even under Bush and Ashcroft, they went after the HLF only after FBI Special Agent Robert Wright–who’d been begging for this prosecution for years–went on ABC News and publicly expressed his disgust. Finally, after that, John Ashcroft decided to indict HLF and a few of its minions. But Agent Wright was persecuted, demoted, and nearly fired as a result.
Meanwhile, while the Holy Land Foundation defendants celebrate their tremendous victory over a limp, PC-dominated Justice Department, the man who won their single greatest post-9/11 victory against terrorists, Richard Convertino, continues to stand trial for daring to prosecute Al-Qaeda terrorists and actually win convictions against them.
When I wrote that the DoJ would lose this case, DoJ employee apologists posted dumb comments on this site claiming I didn’t know what I was talking about and commenting on how hard the DoJ was working on this. Ha. Sadly, I knew exactly what I was talking about.
Yes, I predicted the Justice Department would lose, but you could have, too. Their win-loss record against terrorists is worse than that of the Detroit Lions. But in the NFL, it’s not about the life and death of a nation.
America versus the Terrorists . . . Desperate But NOT Serious. For how much longer will we trust American lives–and the lives snuffed out by HAMAS–to these failures at the Justice Department?
This is Exhibit A for treating terrorists like a national security problem, not a criminal one. Exhibit A #2,309 out of so many others:

Because of the confusion, the judge has not officially accepted the three innocent verdicts, which acquitted charity fundraiser Mufid Abdulqader on all counts and two others on most counts: former chairman Mohammed El-Mezain and the group’s New Jersey representative, Abdulrahman Odeh.

Regardless, they’ve won. And we lost. Yet again.
**** UPDATE: Reader M.T. makes a great point:

It is stunning that the US Attorney could not get
a conviction in this case. After all, the US Attorney
managed to secure the convictions of Border Patrol
agents Campean and Ramos when they could not even link
the recovered slug to any weapon, let alone that of
the agents. The other irregularities in the testimony,
evidence handling and the treatment of the “victim” by
the US Atorney’s office is staggering. See what can be
done if you simply put your mind to it?

Exactly right.




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7 Responses

I am sickened. The case was tight. Where do they find these OJ-type jurors?
[CF: AGREED, BUT ALSO ASK: WHERE DO THEY FIND THE “MY COUSIN VINNIE”-TYPE PROSECUTORS (WHO TOOK THE TIGHT CASE AND DILUTED IT TO THE NTH DEGREE? DS]

Crimsonfisted on October 22, 2007 at 12:58 pm

Thank you, blank-faced Alberto Gonzales. Thank you Jorge Islam-Is-A-Religion-Of-Peace Bush. Counting the days when Jorge the idiot will be back in Texas.

lexi on October 22, 2007 at 1:45 pm

They’re laughing at us all the way to the sand dunes. They don’t have to bury us. We’re burying ourselves.

Rich B on October 22, 2007 at 2:07 pm

Please tell us more specifically about how the DOJ messed up and how they could do better. Could they hire or accept pro bono help from private attorneys? Could a top notch attorney general who is up to speed on Islamofacsism really attract better talent in the short period of time that any administration is in office?
Actually, the Detroit Lions are 4-2 right now so maybe there is hope for the DOJ. If a football player can get motivated for a game, you would think a DOJ lawyer could get pumped up about saving the free world.

Papa Bear on October 22, 2007 at 4:06 pm

“When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.” -Ecclesiastes 8:11
The DoJ is pushing the people’s patience to deal with matters the old-fashioned way. This problem will get much worse.
-XRDC

XRDC on October 22, 2007 at 4:10 pm

Ideally there would be an NGO muslim-led charity watchdog group that would oprerate transparently, and assure donors as to which charities have no ties to terrorist organizations.
The fact that no such watchdog group exists or is even called for by “moderate” muslims speaks volumes about the true character of “moderates” in the muslim community. Apparently they don’t care if some of their money is funneled into death.

melchloboo on October 22, 2007 at 8:23 pm

Monday morning quarterbacking is shaky at best, but especially if you didn’t even watch the game. Lots of blow hards commenting about things they really are just making assumptions about.
I was in the courtroom and had that juror who is spouting off pegged from the beginning. According to an interview he gave there were many jurors who believed the defendants were guilty, but they didn’t stick to the conviction of their own common sense. They let this guy with a predisposed empathy toward the Palestinians and against the Israelis brow beat them. One female juror held her ground and would not relent or else this case would be un-re-triable.
This wasn’t an OJ jury but it was a complicated case and they had a huge learning curve which is counter to everything the mainstream media has taught the public about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the war on terror and the president. Those who control the message control public opinion. Want to blame somebody? Blame a media who trys to set an agenda rather than report the facts.
How about instead of taking up rocks to cast the first stone at the prosecution and the DoJ, Treasury, the FBI and Bush, we encourage them to re-try within the year. Surely it would be more productive to concentrate on who the bad guys really are instead of those trying to bring them to justice.
[D.O.: I FOLLOWED THE CASE VERY CLOSELY AND FOLLOWED HLF WELL BEFORE 9/11, SO I HARDLY THINK THIS IS MONDAY MORNING ANYTHING. IF ANYTHING IT WAS THE PROSECUTORS WHO WERE NOT READY FOR SUNDAY AFTERNOON FOOTBALL. I DIDN’T HAVE TO BE IN THE COURTROOM TO KNOW THE M.O. OF THE D.O.J. THEY FAILED. PERIOD.
AS FOR TAKING UP ROCKS, THEY SHOULD BE DEPOSED. BUT THEY WON’T BE. THERE IS NO PENALTY FOR THEM FOR LOSING THEIR CASE. NOT A SINGLE LAWYER WILL BE FIRED FROM D.O.J. FOR THIS HUGE FAILURE. THEY–NOT THE MEDIA–WERE IN THE COURTROOM MAKING THEIR CASE, AND THEY DIDN’T MAKE THE CASE AT ALL. THEY FAILED. YOU DON’T “ENCOURAGE” RETRIAL, WHEN THEY FAILED THE FIRST TIME. THEY DON’T GET TWO BITES AT THE APPLE, SINCE MOST RETRIALS FAIL. THEY HAD THEIR CHANCE IN MANY TRIALS AND SCREWED EACH ONE UP.
YOU DON’T TAKE MONTHS TO MAKE A SIMPLE CASE THE FACTS OF WHICH WERE VERY STRONG. THAT LOSES THE JURY ALMOST ALWAYS. THIS WASN’T, AS YOU CLAIM, A COMPLICATED CASE AT ALL. THAT YOU THOUGHT SO AFTER SITTING IN THE COURTROOM SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING. HLF’S CRIMES WERE EASILY DESCRIBED BY ME JUST AFTER 9/11 (AND LATER, BY MANY OTHERS). IF I CAN DESCRIBE IT IN A SHORT COLUMN, THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR TAKING MONTHS TO MIX IT WITH SWILL.
THEY FAILED AND THEY SHOULD BE CRITICIZED. THAT YOU DON’T WANT TO SHOWS THAT 6 YEARS LATER YOU GET IT AS MUCH AS THEY DO. BUT THEY HAVE AN AGENDA IN DELIBERATELY NOT FIGHTING HARD AND LOSING. WHAT’S YOUR AGENDA IN DEFENDING THIS CONTINUED FAILURE. THEY ARE LAUGHING AT US. DOES IT NOT BOTHER YOU THAT THE KEY DEFENDANT IN THIS CASE YELLED OUT “ALLAHU AKBAR” UPON HEARING THE VERDICT? IT SHOULD. AND THAT’S NOT MONDAY MORNING QB’ING. THAT’S 6 YEARS LATER DIAGNOSIS OF A CANCER THAT HAS SPREAD AND HAS ALREADY METASTASIZED. DS]

DiDi Orio on October 23, 2007 at 5:41 pm

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