A former FBI counterterrorism specialist has had his GoFundMe account taken down by the platform because, he believes, they were intimidated by the radical Left-wing Muslim organization CAIR.
John Guandolo had initiated the GoFundMe campaign to raise funds to fight a lawsuit in Minnesota’s 5th Congressional District, which is currently represented by anti-Semite Ilhan Omar. By losing the account suddenly, Guandolo also lost thousands of dollars he’d already raised, Big League Politics noted.
“In its work to speak, teach, train, and consult about National Security Threats to the United States, Understanding the Threat (UTT) comes under significant assaults, threats, and legal action. This is a part of the war in which we are engaged,” Guandolo explained on his GoFundMe page, which was removed last week.
His group is battling a lawsuit filed by former Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek, which reportedly stems from an altercation that took place at the National Sheriff’s Convention in Reno, Nevada, in 2017.
Paul Sperry, a Hoover Institute media fellow, broke the news regarding the status of Guandolo’s GoFundMe page on Twitter.
https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1167195049777647616
“BREAKING: CAIR intimidates GoFundMe into shutting down the account of ex-FBI counterrorr agent who is training local police to ID radical mosques and jihadist fronts like CAIR after account raises $15,000 of $20,000 goal to defend against lawfare suit in Rep. Ilan Omar's district,” he wrote Aug. 29.
Big League Politics noted further that Guandolo posted on his website that he is certain the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a front group for terrorists who backs Omar and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), who is of Palestinian descent, is behind having his GoFundMe page deleted.
That’s because the group essentially bragged about it.
“The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today said it is monitoring former Minnesota Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek’s $1 million civil lawsuit against anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist John Guandolo and his anti-Muslim hate group,” CAIR wrote in a press release about the case.
How is a group tied to Islamic terrorism wielding this much influence?
The group also boasts about how it can persuade various groups and institutions — including law enforcement agencies — to ban Guandolo and his associates from educating them on the nature of Islam. (Related: The Democrats have an anti-Semitism problem and it’s growing beyond leadership’s ability to contain it.)
“CAIR similarly welcomed a decision by Virginia’s Amherst County Sheriff’s Office to drop an event featuring Islamophobic conspiracy theorist Chris Gaubatz. Gaubatz is a former employee of Guandolo’s anti-Muslim hate group Understanding the Threat. Gaubatz is now the President of another anti-Muslim hate group, RAIR (Resistance Against Islamic Radicals),” CAIR continued in its release.
The effort to have Guandolo deplatformed from GoFundMe, if CAIR is behind it, cost the former FBI counterterrorism official thousands of dollars.
“Lawfare, a jihadi specialty, the use of litigation to suppress truth, has been deployed against UTT to bleed us financially and take us off mission. Matters have now come to a head, and we urgently need funding to fight off this attack—and win our countersuit to teach them a lesson,” he wrote on his site.
He’s now attempting to raise $15,000 for his legal battle on his UTT website to cover the expected legal expenses.
As for CAIR, it backed an effort in July by Omar and 10 other House Democrats in pushing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to disclose how information from the FBI’s terrorist watchlist is shared with foreign governments. CAIR has mounted legal challenges against the watchlist in the past because - egad! — it contains Islamic extremists.
In February, Tlaib joined an extremist imam on a CAIR-sponsored speaking tour. Conservative Review notes that CAIR has ties to Hamas, a known terrorist organization that often serves as a proxy for Iran.
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