Senator Asks IRS to Investigate Nonprofit Group for Alleged Ties to Hamas

The group, CAIR, has denied Sen. Tom Cotton's allegations.

Published: 8/7/2025, 3:45:26 PM EDT

Senator Asks IRS to Investigate Nonprofit Group for Alleged Ties to Hamas — The IRS headquarters in Washington. (AP Photo/J. David Ake, File)

A Republican senator has asked the IRS to investigate a group for alleged ties to Hamas and questioned its nonprofit status.

In a letter to IRS Commissioner Billy Long, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) asked the IRS to look into the nonprofit status of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and investigate whether it has ties to the Hamas terrorist group and the Muslim Brotherhood.

“The IRS has broad authority to examine whether an entity's operations align with its exempt purpose. Tax-exempt status is a privilege, not a right, and it should not subsidize organizations with links to terrorism," Cotton wrote in the letter.

While CAIR has said it is a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting the rights of Muslims in the United States, Cotton accused the group of having "deep ties to terrorist organizations."

The senator cited government exhibits from a trial showing the group's founders had "participated in a meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia, where they discussed strategies to advance the Islamist agenda in America while concealing their true affiliations."

The Epoch Times contacted CAIR for comment on Thursday.

In a statement to media outlets this week, CAIR denied Cotton's allegations and described the claims as conspiracy theories.

“Tom Cotton’s baseless demand that the IRS target a nonprofit organization based on debunked conspiracy theories is an un-American political stunt straight from the McCarthy era, and it’s motivated by the senator’s desire to protect the genocidal Israeli government from criticism,” the organization said in its statement.

CAIR also said that it condemned the October 2023 Hamas terrorist attack in Israel that killed more than 1,200 Israeli civilians and resulted in more than 250 Israeli and American hostages being taken by the terrorist group.

The attack sparked the ongoing war between Israel and the group. The United Nations said that more than 60,000 Palestinians have died in the conflict as of July 30.

“This is called moral consistency, and Senator Cotton should try it,” CAIR said in its statement, suggesting that Cotton was acting on behalf of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In the letter, Cotton cited comments made by CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks that he was "happy to see" that Palestinians had broken "the siege" and "the shackles of their own land."

However, Awad said in a statement in December 2023 that the controversial comments relating to Oct. 7, 2023, and Palestinians were taken out of context.

“What I actually said while discussing international law: Ukrainians, Palestinians and other occupied people have the right to defend themselves and escape occupation by just and legal means, but targeting civilians is never an acceptable means of doing so, which is why I have again and again condemned the violence against Israeli civilians on Oct. 7 and past Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians, including suicide bombings, all the way back to the 1990s," the statement read, in part.

From The Epoch Times