Still a crook any way you look
Attorney General Ken Paxton on Thursday sued the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights group, and the Muslim Brotherhood, an international Sunni Muslim group, alleging they are working in concert as a “radical terrorist organization that exists to usurp governmental power and establish dominion through Sharia law.”
In the lawsuit, filed in state court in Collin County, Paxton asks a judge to declare that CAIR is a foreign terrorist organization and transnational criminal organization, and prohibit them from operating in the state, including cutting off their fundraising.
This is the latest in a flurry of probes and lawsuits into CAIR and other Muslim groups by Republican elected officials, in Texas and nationally, amid a surge in Islamophobia.
CAIR asserts that they are being targeted for their opposition to Israel over the war in Gaza, and said in a statement that the group would continue to operate in Texas despite these lawsuits and investigations.
“We have also defeated Greg Abbott’s attacks on the Constitution three different times in a row,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We look forward to doing so again.”
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CAIR denies any wrongdoing. The group says they follow all laws, and exist solely to enhance understanding of Islam, protect civil rights, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.
Paxton’s latest lawsuit, they say, is “late, noting that they have already sued in federal court to block Abbott’s proclamation declaring the group to be a terrorist organization. That lawsuit has yet to be decided.
“Just as Mr. Paxton’s attempt to shut down a Latino voting rights group failed last week, his latest attempt to target our civil rights group is also doomed to fail,” a spokesperson said. “The people of Texas elected Mr. Paxton to serve them, not to silence Texans who dared to oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza.”
I’m late to this story, as I didn’t blog about Abbott’s freakout over CAIR, which led to him triple-dog-daring Paxton to go after them, but here we are now. Nice burn by CAIR on the JOLT outcome; I suspect that Paxton took some of his filings from that case, changed some names and added words like “jihadist” for flavor, and went from there. Between this and Dan Patrick’s latest fixation on “Sharia law”, it’s no wonder that some Texas Muslim Republicans are beginning to question their life choices.