The Obama administration funded a known Al-Qaeda affiliate in 2014, National Review reports.
The damning discovery was made by the Middle East Forum, who found that the Obama administration approved a $200,000 grant to the Khartoum-based Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), despite ISRA being labeled a terror financing organization by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2004. According to the OFAC, ISRA had given $5 million to Osama bin Laden’s organization Maktab al-Khidamat, and had also raised money in Western Europe for Hamas suicide bombings.
In the U.S., ISRA used grant money to pay former congressman Mark Siljander $75,000 to lobby for them to be removed from the terrorist list. Siljander pled guilty to obstruction of justice in 2010.
A known $115,000 of the grant was directly authorized by the government even after they became aware of ISRA’s terrorist involvement.
How ISRA was able to obtain U.S. government funds is quite complicated. Sam Westrop, the director the Middle East Forum's "Islamic Watch," explains in National Review:
“[T]he U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in July 2014 awarded $723,405 to World Vision Inc., an international evangelical charity, to ‘improve water, sanitation and hygiene and to increase food security in Sudan’s Blue Nile state.’ Of these funds, $200,000 was to be directed to a sub-grantee: ISRA.”
World Vision developed a strong relationship with ISRA — a relationship the USAID eventually took caution of when they demand World Vision to “suspend all activities with ISRA” as they investigated its terrorist ties.
The evangelical charity grew frustrated with the USAID, saying the suspension was hurting their relationship with ISRA, who they claimed “had performed excellent work” for them in the past.
OFAC then denied World Vision a license for transactions with ISRA, furthering the charity’s frustration. World Vision went on to ask Obama administration official Jeremy Konyndyk to renew their license so they could pay off their debts to ISRA.
Here, we see the corruption reach its peak.
Westrop writes:
“[A]fter ‘close collaboration and consultations with the Department of State’ — OFAC issued a license to a World Vision affiliate, World Vision International, authorizing ‘a one-time transfer of approximately $125,000 to ISRA,’ of which ‘$115,000 was for services performed under the sub-award with USAID’ and $10,000 was ‘for an unrelated funding arrangement between Irish Aid and World Vision.’”
This means the Obama administration used taxpayer dollars to fund ISRA while having full knowledge of their ties to Al-Qaeda.
Add that to the Obama scandal list.