Exclusive: Pro-Palestinian media outlets with ties to Hamas are facing intense scrutiny from three House committees in a joint memorandum calling on the Department of Justice to investigate.
Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Education and Workforce Committee Chair Virginia Foxx (R-Ky.) sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday accusing the Palestine Chronicle and the U.S. nonprofit that runs it of violating several laws.
“We urge you to investigate Palestine Chronicle and People Media Project for violations of the law, specifically, providing material support to a known terrorist organization in violation of 18 USC § 2339B, filing false tax returns in violation of 26 USC § 7206, and failing to file valid tax returns and pay estimated taxes in violation of 26 USC § 7203,” the letter read.
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House committee chairs Jason Smith, James Comer and Virginia Foxx have launched a joint investigation into the Palestine Chronicle. (Getty Images)
This comes after several Israeli hostages taken by Hamas in an October 7 terror attack were found in the home of Abdallah al-Jamal, a contributor to the Palestine Chronicle and other media outlets and a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Labor, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). He was killed by the IDF during a hostage rescue operation.
“At the time Al-Jamal was working as a ‘journalist,’ he was described as a ‘correspondent’ on the Palestine Chronicle’s website, but after news of him holding innocent Israelis hostage was reported around the world, the paper changed his description to a ‘contributing writer,'” the lawmakers’ letter said.
The Republicans also accused the Palestine Chronicle and People Media Project of having ties to Iran, writing that the media’s founder and editor-in-chief, Ramzi Baroud, “also writes for Kayhan International, an outlet allegedly funded by Iran’s supreme leader. Notably, six of Kayhan’s writers appeared on a state-run website seized by the U.S. government in 2020 after it was found to be illegally used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps for covert global influence campaigns.”
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Freed hostage Almog Meir Jan reacts after the Israeli army announced it had rescued four hostages alive from the central Gaza Strip on June 8, 2024. He was held by a contributor to The Palestine Chronicle. (Reuters/Marco Jurica)
The lawmakers pointed to federal law which provides that “any person who provides, attempts to provide, or conspires to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization under U.S. jurisdiction shall be fined under this section or imprisoned for not more than 20 years, or both, and, if the act results in the death of a person, shall be imprisoned for not less than that term or for life.”
“[B]”Based on the available facts, Palestine Chronicle and People Media Project appear to be, at the very least, complicit in supporting Hamas and, at worst, full-fledged financiers of terrorism,” the letter said.
Finally, they accuse People Media Project of deliberately misrepresenting its financial situation. Tax returnsThey argued that the Department of Justice was “negligent” in failing to investigate alleged discrepancies in the group’s revenue in recent years.
“I am deeply concerned that an organization that enjoys tax-exempt status in the United States has not only hired a journalist who worked with Hamas to take innocent Israelis hostage, but also selected an editor-in-chief who appears to have ties to Iran and its terror financing networks,” Smith told Fox News Digital. “Individuals and organizations who seek to manipulate tax laws to further terrorism must be punished.”
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Smith’s Ways and Means Committee last month launched a separate investigation into the media outlet and its related nonprofits and asked the IRS to revoke People Media Project’s tax-exempt status.
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As of Monday, the nonprofit was also being sued by Almog Meir Jan, one of the Israeli hostages allegedly being held in Al-Jamal’s home.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Department of Justice and the Palestine Chronicle for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Joseph Wolfson contributed to this report.
