The lawyer for a Florida-based professor accused of leading a violent Palestinian terror group will seek to embarrass the U.S. government next month by introducing evidence that his client attended numerous meetings at the White House and met with high-level figures in both political parties, including Hillary Clinton and White House political director Karl Rove, according to recent court records.
Former computer science professor Sami Al-Arian—a longstanding prime spokesman for Arab-American political causes—goes on trial next month on charges that he served as a secret leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The PIJ is a State Department-designated terrorist organization that U.S. officials charge is responsible for a rash of suicide bombings and other attacks that led to the deaths of Israeli and American civilians.
The Justice Department considers Al-Arian’s case one of the most important terror cases it has brought under the USA Patriot Act—the post-9/11 law that explicitly authorized the use of secret national-security wiretaps in criminal cases. But at his trial, slated to begin in Tampa, Fla., in early June, Al-Arian’s lawyer is seeking to turn the tables by hammering home his client’s surprising access to the highest levels of the U.S. government—even at a time that he was a principal target of a highly sensitive FBI counterterrorism probe.
Just how much access Al-Arian had is detailed in a letter written to federal prosecutors by his lawyer, William Moffit, that was recently entered into the court record. Moffit states that Al-Arian attended meetings at the White House with both Clinton and Bush every year between 1998 and 2001. In addition, the letter states, Al-Arian also attended a briefing at the Justice Department in July 2001, met with Al Gore in November 1998 and Hillary Clinton in October 1999. It also states that President Bush sent a written apology to Al-Arian’s wife in 2001 when the couple son’s was denied access to the White House—reportedly because of his connection to his father. LINK
This guy also had access to Norquist, Hastert, Gingrich and Asa Hutchinson.
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