The friends of Jim McDermott

Democrat Congressman and prominent Bush critic Jim McDermott had a travel junket paid for with money from a terror linked domestic group just raided by the Feds. The raid is described as troubling to Muslims according to an article in the Detroit Free Press.

Counterterrorism agents of the FBI and IRS raided what is believed to be one of the biggest Muslim charities in the United States on Monday, hauling away a truckload of documents and computers from its Southfield office.

The raid was based on sealed search warrants, but the charity's head of legal services, Ihsan Alkhatib, said the agents are investigating whether the charity conducted business in Iraq before the 2003 war in violation of legal sanctions against the country.

The website Nalert links to a Seattle Times column by David Postman that noted

It was reported in 2003 that the group, along with the Church Council of Greater Seattle, paid for McDermott and two other Democratic congressmen to fly to Iraq in 2002.

McDermott and the charity also shared a controversial contributor, Detroit businessman Shakir al—Khafaji, as reported in this 2004 story.

McDermott, D—Seattle, returned a $5,000 contribution from al—Khafaji, who had accompanied McDermott on his highly publicized trip to Iraq in 2002.

The businessman has been linked to the U.N. oil scandal in Iraq as well.

Hat tip: News Alert

Ed Lasky   9 20 06

Update:

Debbie Schlussel wrote of the raided charity, LIFE for Relief and Development (LRD), the largest Islamic charity in the country, in the New York Post yesterday, assembling a impressive number of worrisome ties and activities, and in the New York Sun on Monday. She has been following it a long time, and has assembled an impressive body of work on it.