Joe Biden’s latest list of nominees for federal judge includes a Muslim lawyer who spent much of her career undermining counter-terrorism investigations and getting suspected terrorists off the hook. Nusrat Choudhury, a Bangladeshi American director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), could become the first Muslim woman to sit on a federal bench. However, this historic moment would be overshadowed by Choudhury’s connections to radical Islamic groups and her legal activism on their behalf.
Islamism With the backing of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who lauded the nominee’s “decade-plus experience as a civil rights litigator,” Choudhury is likely to secure confirmation to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. However, the Senate Judiciary Committee should first consider Choudhury’s links to the Council on American-Islamic-Relations (CAIR), a self-proclaimed Muslim civil rights organization accused of ties to foreign terrorist groups and extremists.
In 2010, Choudhury spoke on behalf of designated terrorist group CAIR’s Chicago chapter at an Islamic Society of North America conference, where she was described as one of CAIR’s “representatives.” At the time, CAIR was emerging from a public relations crisis after it was labeled a conspirator in a massive federal terror finance trial, with one of its senior leaders receiving a 65-year sentence for funding Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group.
More recently, CAIR generated headlines thanks to its ongoing campaign to free “Lady Al Qaeda” Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani-American neuroscientist serving an 86-year sentence for attempting to murder U.S. troops. Siddiqui’s freedom is a cause célèbre of Islamists and jihadists around the world, inspiring a British national to detain hostages inside a Colleyville, Texas, synagogue on January 15, bartering their lives in exchange for Siddiqui’s release.
Choudhury’s “friends” at the CAIR-Chicago branch are unabashed extremists. This includes Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago’s longtime director, who has defended Holocaust deniers and bashed LGBT Muslims.
It is no accident that Choudhury’s ACLU legal activism neatly coincides with CAIR’s institutional goals – battling the NYPD in court, hoping to end its surveillance of suspected Muslim terrorists.
When Choudhury was tackling the “no-fly list,” a subset of the U.S. government’s Terrorist Screening Database that blocks suspected terrorists from air travel, CAIR mirrored her efforts by suing the government to end the program.
In Raza v. City of New York, Choudhury was part of a team of civil rights attorneys who claimed that city law enforcement engaged in “suspicionless surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers.” Even after reaching a settlement in the case, the city continues to deny that it monitored Muslim individuals and organizations based solely on their religion. In fact, an affidavit from NYPD Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence David Cohen demonstrated numerous recent cases in NYC where police surveillance led to the disruption of serious terrorist plots.
NYPD attorneys submitted evidence demonstrating probable cause to investigate each of Choudhury’s clients. For instance, in the case of Masjid Al-Ansar, a Brooklyn-area mosque, NYPD intelligence documented at least nine attendees who were convicted of crimes for joining, supporting, or conspiring to carry out plots on behalf of Al Qaeda and other “jihadist fighting groups.”
Another client, Mohammad Elshinawy, preached at Masjid Al-Ansar and organized a 2005 paintball trip with local Muslim students, which he allegedly described as training for jihad. Witnesses called the police in 2008 to report Elshinaway and others taking part in “secretive and highly unusual” outdoor training in martial arts and obstacle courses, and the FBI was investigating the imam for his potential role in recruiting at least four Muslim men convicted of attempting to travel overseas to fight for jihadists.
Biden’s nominee also represented Asad “Ace” Dandia and his nonprofit, Muslims Giving Back (MGB). Police allege that Dandia tried to organize a 2011 trip to Pakistan with his “close associate,” Justin Kaliebe, who pleaded guilty to plotting to travel overseas to join Al Qaeda. Police claim that Dandia supports “violent jihad” and attacks against Shiite Muslims, and that he was an enthusiastic fan of Al Qaeda commander Anwar al-Awlaki.
Years after the Raza case was concluded, MGB was exposed for hawking “Martyrs Never Die” and “#GazaStrong” wristbands, with all proceeds benefiting Islamic Relief Gaza, a notorious charity outlawed in Israel and U.A.E. for coordinating with Hamas. Furthermore, MGB partners closely with the Muslim Community Patrol, a radical neighborhood watch group that comes from a long line of Islamic vigalantes attempting to assert control over Brooklyn neighborhoods.
Incidentally, Dandia is currently the community programs coordinator at CAIR-New York.
Choudhury’s case changed the way that the NYPD handles investigations into political activities, limiting the use of informants, curtailing the duration of inquiries, and even censoring a department study of homegrown terrorism. However, Islamist groups like CAIR remain unsatisfied after a 2016 inspector general report revealed that 95 percent of the city’s investigations into religious and political activity targeted Muslims.
Choudhury continued representing Islamic extremists in Latif v. Holder, a landmark federal case that sought to remove 13 Muslim citizens and residents from the government’s no-fly list and establish a process of redress for suspected national security threats. On the other hand, authorities were concerned with protecting classified evidence and sensitive government sources.
Choudhury fought long and hard so that Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, a Salafist imam from Portland, could travel freely around the world. Yet, she failed to secure the cleric’s removal from the no-fly list, and for good reasons. According to the FBI, Kariye coordinated with Osama Bin Laden and other terrorist masterminds, and he is linked to Al Qaeda’s pre-cursor, Makhtab Al-Khidamat.
An FBI affidavit alleged that Kariye played a significant role in assisting the Portland Seven, members of Kariye’s mosque who travelled to China in hopes of joining the Taliban’s jihad in Afghanistan. Defendants in the case told an FBI informant that Kariye helped fund their trip abroad and had “spoken out very strongly for jihad.” The imam’s citizenship was revoked in 2019, reportedly for lying to immigration agents when he applied for naturalization, and Kariye returned to Somaliland as part of a deal with the U.S. government.
Even after Choudhury and her colleagues convinced the courts to enforce a revised appeals mechanism for individuals on the no-fly list, nearly half of her 13 clients remain barred from air travel. These remaining plaintiffs continued to seek reforms, but a district court ruledthat the government’s redress process satisfies due process.
Choudhury’s legal baptism with the ACLU came in the 2009 case Raed v. Harris, when she represented Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-born activist who serves as advocacy director for American Muslims for Palestine (AMP). A radical anti-Israel nonprofit known for promoting anti-Semitic conspiracies, AMP grew out of a Hamas public relations outfit shuttered in 2004 for funding the terrorist group, and its leaders promote armed resistance against Israel.
Jarrar was perhaps the first in a long line of Islamist clients to receive legal support from Choudhury, a fact that is sure to please this politically active subset of radicalized Muslim Americans. Through a decade of litigation, Choudhury has displayed a glaring inability to balance individual freedoms with law and order. Her decision to represent clients who may constitute serious national security threats demonstrates a reckless disregard for public safety.
eshetchayil says
And this is surprising because . . . . . . .?!?!?
whiskerdik says
The kind of anti American scum that has become the Democrat normal.
Marshall+Gill says
Stop speaking in their language! In English the woman hating worshipers of the illiterate pedophile are Moslems, NOT Muslims, which is how you pronounce the word in Arabic. Churchill called them Mohammedans.
canuckguynbgmailcom says
The fact that she is being considered just boggles my mind. The leftist wacko woke at it again.
Zane says
Interesting thing about Biden’s considering this woman is the fact he’s a longtime and known career race supremacist.
BareNakedIslam says
Follow the money. I’m sure his campaign was well-funded by the Muslims.
Jack Rider says
i remember what joe biden once said about “711” stores in delaware & it merits a paraphrase, “you cannot go & sit on the Supreme Court unless you have a slight Indian accent.” remember that gaffe? biden is a jerk without one ounce of intellect in his empty head. despite his BS working class “lunch pail joe” crafted persona, he is essentially a crass and craven politician who will do and say anything for advantage & to get next to the trough of cash that flows into the swamp. joe, as VP, saw the slobbering fawning of the media that followed obama around during that presidency and wanted it for himself, so he opportunistically hitched his dialectic to that wagon train of woke nonesense & surrounded himself with the apparatchiks of obama’s politburo. some leaders inspire great confidence, are unifiers through war and peace, like Winston Churchill & his speech in Parliament about “blood sweat and tears.” biden is no such leader. his tag line is more like, “well i got mine.”
BareNakedIslam says
I don’t think Biden ever had a real job. He’s been in government since his 20’s I think.
Reader says
This looks like the work of Barack’s third term.
Bubba Grump's Nutz says
*Bingeaux*
Hartmut says
This is a classic example of what we call marching through the institutions.
Daniel Erbstoesser says
That is how it works first they allways get the job or office because they are placed just as the judge habbarth in germany and when a sentence is not wanted then the judge gets a free meal with the merkel and shups all goes merkels way.Then they form many vereine or rotarys and democracy clubs and then the monetary and lawfull support starts, they change laws and constitutions as they wish because they have the power and we can only watch open mouthed. This excample should show how its done , Occupy all seats of power and then do what you want knowing that the media will support you in that they write nice articles about it and never forget they write the opponent quilty before the termin starts. This is what i write for the last 10 years. They have usurped our judical Law, and the politics and they are using them to destroy our democracy.
vtology says
Biden is the most despicable public official in US history, bar none.
Reader says
It just gets curiousor and curiousor doesn’t it, Bon’?
BareNakedIslam says
It was Obama’s plan all along.
Linda Rivera says
Quran (3:56) – “As to those who reject faith, I will punish them with terrible agony in this world and in the Hereafter, nor will they have anyone to help.”
Obama Puppet Biden and his regime appear to want to go after good, decent, patriotic, peaceful non Muslims who speak out for victims and protest Muslim terrorists attacking non Muslims.
America is no longer recognizable as the nation it once was.
Ronald Reagan:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Marshall Gill says
Linda, you are not paying attention if you think that there are “good, decent, patriotic, peaceful” Mohammedans, there are not. It is a vile woman hating death cult which is in direct opposition to human Liberty. There are good former Mohammedans like Ayaan Hirsi Ali but you can’t worship a murderous pedophile and still be decent or good.