Overview

• Cotton’s letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long requests a full review of CAIR’s compliance with charitable tax rules, focusing on its financial records, affiliations and activities.
• The senator cites CAIR’s unindicted co-conspirator status in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation case, in which the Justice Department determined $12.4 million in contributions went to Hamas.
• CAIR maintains it has operated as an independent civil rights advocate for over 30 years and says its funding comes primarily from individual donors despite opaque financial disclosures.
• The organization dismissed the probe as rooted in debunked conspiracy theories and likened the attack on its status to McCarthy-era tactics.
• Under section 501(c)(3), the IRS can revoke an organization’s tax exemption if it is found to have provided material support to designated terrorist entities.