The Good Friday document dump from the Clinton Library archives includes a hand-written friendly note on official White House stationery to the chairman of a mosque former led by senior al-Qaeda operative Anwar al-Awlaki as an imam. The note dates from March 2000, and was written in response to a letter from the chairman of the board of the Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque in Falls Church, Virginia.

“I’m interested in all these suggestions. Let’s follow up,” Clinton said in the note, in which he also said that it would be good to have support from Muslims. Clinton signed the note “Bill.”

Patrick Howley of the Daily Caller notes:

The Dar Al-Hjrah Mosque was visited by FBI agents after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks after it was discovered that two 9/11 hijackers had worshipped at the mosque.

The mosque’s imam from 1995 to 1999, prior to Clinton’s note, was Mohammed Al Hanooti, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by a U.S. attorney. Al Hanooti defended an acquaintance that was deported and indicted for arranging financial support for the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas.

The mosque’s imam from January 2001 to April 2002 was Anwar Al-Awlaki, a senior al-Qaeda recruiter linked to a handful of high-profile terrorists. U.S. officials stated that Al-Awlaki preached to three of the 9/11 hijackers while he was imam of the Falls Church mosque, and was also linked to the Fort Hood shooter. Al-Awlaki left the United States for Yemen in 2002 and was killed in a September 2011 drone strike commanded by the CIA.

Did nobody vet this mosque and its chairman before the POTUS wrote a friendly note by hand? Was multiculturalism such a pervasive doctrine that basic security checks were not undertaken?

Incompetence is the charitable explanation.