WASHINGTON – House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer on Tuesday demanded that the leadership of the American Muslim Association for Palestine (AMP) turn over any information related to its “pro-Hamas propaganda and funding of illegal camps” at universities across the country.
In his letter, Rep. Comer (R-KY) asked AMP Executive Director Osama Abu-Irshaid to provide all “documents and correspondence” with or relating to an affiliate group, the national Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which Comer said “claims to ‘support over 200 Palestine solidarity groups’ on college campuses across North America.”
Comer said the information is needed “to inform legislation to ensure that federal agencies are adequately combating money laundering and terrorist financing” and to determine whether Congress should update “statutory reporting requirements for financial institutions related to money laundering and terrorist financing.”
On May 29, the committee sent AMP its first letter, requesting documents related to funding and communications with the student group, any information related to the brutal October 7 Hamas terrorist attack against Israel, as well as “all documents and communications, regardless of subject, created or sent between October 6 and October 8, 2023.”
“The Committee is particularly concerned that organizations that spread pro-Hamas propaganda and engage in illegal activities at institutions of higher education may receive funding and other support from domestic and foreign sources that support the objectives of Hamas and other foreign terrorist organizations,” Comer wrote.
The letter noted that SJP-backed protests have included harassment of Jewish students, demands for universities to divest from Israel, and claims that the Jewish state has no right to exist and should be eliminated.
Comer said AMP rejected the letter on June 11, with its legal counsel arguing that the organisation was “not the ‘parent’ or ‘founder’ of National SJP and does not have any corporate relationship with that organisation”.
But Comer noted in his letter on Tuesday that “there is ample evidence to suggest a direct relationship exists” between the two groups, and speculated that the rejection may actually be related to a pending lawsuit filed by families of victims of the Oct. 7 attacks alleging that both AMP and SJP are propaganda fronts “that recruit ignorant, misguided and impressionable university students as foot soldiers for Hamas.”
“Perhaps you believe this is a necessary action because such an admission could adversely affect AMP’s legal strategy against the lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of Virginia,” he wrote. Latest Letter.
“To avoid further delays and to mitigate any confusion for your company, I, as the Executive Director of AMP, will be writing directly to you to discuss this with you. AMP We need prompt and voluntary compliance,” he added.
While previous letters have called for voluntary compliance, Comer in Tuesday’s letter threatened to use the committee’s subpoena powers to force AMP to turn over documents and communications.
“Should AMP continue to fail to produce the requested documents, we will consider other avenues, including the use of enforcement procedures, to hear the request and obtain this material,” he wrote.
AMP did not immediately respond to The Washington Post’s request for comment.
