Senate Judiciary Hearing Focuses on Muslim Brotherhood, with Jewish Onliner Cited
Witnesses at the hearing traced CAIR-linked activity from U.S. classrooms to Qatar-based IUMS and a conference featuring a sanctioned Hamas fundraiser. Jewish Onliner reporting was cited five times.
Jewish Onliner is an independent publication. If you find our work valuable, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. You can also subscribe to us on WhatsApp and Telegram. Follow us on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Discord, and X.
Two Jewish Onliner investigations entered the Senate record on August 5, 2026. They were cited five times in written testimony for a hearing on the Muslim Brotherhood’s alleged U.S. network.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) presided over the hearing as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Federal Courts, Oversight, Agency Action and Federal Rights. The proceeding focused on the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and legacy organizations identified in federal terrorism-financing evidence.
Witnesses also examined a CAIR-Ohio official’s participation in a conference featuring a sanctioned Hamas fundraiser. Additional testimony addressed an FBI archive of U.S. Brotherhood records, recent transactions involving CAIR’s Washington headquarters and litigation over the organization’s donor records.
The hearing was titled “Hidden in Plain Sight: Confronting the Muslim Brotherhood Network in America.” It featured retired FBI special agent Lara Burns, counterterrorism analyst Kyle Shideler and senior litigation counsel for the National Jewish Advocacy Center Arielle F. Klepach. The citations appeared in Klepach’s 48-page testimony.
Two Jewish Onliner Investigations Enter the Senate Record
Klepach’s 48-page testimony cited Jewish Onliner’s February 2026 DAWN investigation in footnote 84 on page 18. The citation supported the statement that Esam Omeish served as national president of the Muslim American Society from 2004 to 2008.
The citation appeared in a section examining Omeish’s chairmanship of the Washington Trust Foundation, a nonprofit whose stated mission is to support CAIR-Foundation. Klepach also cited a federal appellate brief describing the Muslim American Society as having been founded as the Brotherhood’s “overt arm” in the United States. A senior MAS official has acknowledged that Brotherhood members helped establish it while maintaining that the organization later developed beyond those origins.
A September 2025 Jewish Onliner K-12 investigation received four separate citations in footnotes 159 through 162 on pages 31 and 32. Klepach used the reporting to document similar CAIR educational materials promoted in Pennsylvania and Delaware. The reporting also traced related materials in New Jersey, Oklahoma, Florida and Illinois. One guide told teachers to avoid “Islamic terrorists,” “jihadists” and “radical Islamic terrorists” when discussing September 11. The investigation also documented CAIR-Chicago’s advertised partnership with Chicago Public Schools.
Event With CAIR-Ohio Director & Hamas Official Receives Scrutiny
Klepach also devoted several pages to an October 2025 Al-Zaytouna Centre event originally reported by Jewish Onliner, which found that Khalid Turaani chaired the first session of a two-panel Arabic-language conference on October 22. Turaani had been appointed executive director of CAIR-Ohio in June 2024. The Beirut-based Al-Zaytouna Centre organized the event.
The event was titled “Palestinians Abroad and Regional and International Strategic Transformations in Light of Operation al-Aqsa Flood.” “Al-Aqsa Flood” is Hamas’s name for the October 7, 2023 attacks.
A separate session at the same event featured Majed al-Zeer and Sami al-Arian. The U.S. Treasury identified al-Zeer in October 2024 as a senior Hamas representative in Germany. It said he played a central role in the terrorist organization’s European fundraising and designated him for acting on behalf of Hamas. Al-Arian pleaded guilty in 2006 to conspiring to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Klepach described Al-Zaytouna as a Brotherhood-aligned institution that had published material authored by Hamas leaders. She argued that Turaani’s participation gave credibility to the event and its organizer.
Testimony Traces a Broader Institutional Network
The hearing also addressed the Muslim American Society and the North American Islamic Trust. Other organizations discussed included the Islamic Circle of North America, the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Students Association.
Many of these institutions, along with their predecessors and offshoots, have been covered in Jewish Onliner’s comprehensive series. “The Brotherhood in Your Backyard” maps organizations named in or connected to the 1991 Explanatory Memorandum and traces how related entities evolved.
CAIR Contacts With Qatar-Based IUMS
Burns also examined repeated contacts between CAIR executive director Nihad Awad and the Qatar-based International Union of Muslim Scholars (IUMS). Her testimony cited Arabic-language pages placing Awad at IUMS meetings between 2012 and at least 2022. These included a 2012 panel with IUMS founder Yusuf al-Qaradawi and a later meeting with secretary-general Ali al-Qaradaghi.
Qaradawi founded IUMS in 2004 and led it until 2018. Burns said evidence from the Holy Land Foundation trial identified him as an unindicted co-conspirator and an overseas fundraiser for the foundation alongside Hamas leaders. She also cited his religious rulings legitimizing suicide bombings. When Qaradawi died in 2022, Awad described him in an online tribute as “the most influential contemporary Muslim scholar.”
DSA Ties and El-Sayed Associations
The questioning later moved into electoral politics. Cruz asked Shideler whether Muslim Brotherhood groups partner with the Democratic Socialists of America. Shideler answered yes. Cruz then described the cooperation as a “red-green alliance” and asked about its basis. In a recorded hearing clip, Shideler said he believed it was also united by a revolutionary objective aimed at overturning the U.S. Constitution.
Cruz also asked about Abdul El-Sayed, who won Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary one day before the hearing. When Cruz asked whether the candidacy concerned him, Shideler cited El-Sayed’s relationship with Emgage. Shideler described Emgage as close to CAIR. He also pointed to the past organizational roles of El-Sayed’s father-in-law, Jukaku Tayeb. Tayeb served as president of CAIR-Michigan and has served on ISNA’s founders committee.
Witnesses Seek Investigations
Klepach called for ending CAIR’s federal grants, opening IRS examinations and not renewing its immigration-services accreditation. She also proposed legislation addressing successor organizations, pass-through foreign donations and discovery obstruction. Shideler’s principal recommendation was a new classified intelligence assessment. It could be compared with the structure documented nearly two decades ago.