Today realized convictions on all counts against all defendants in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) terrorism support trial in Dallas. The verdicts are a significant counter-terrorism victory for the U.S. Government. Part of the prosecution's case involved identifying an extensive list of unindicted coconspirators who the Government claimed were, while not criminally charged, linked in some conspiratorial way to the HLF efforts to provide support to the terrorist organization Hamas. Those efforts originally grew from a subversive plan rooted in the radical Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB) that called for the establishment of front organizations in the United States to facilitate covert support operations for the MB and its affiliates. Hamas, a terrorist organization, is one of those "affiliates."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and ISNA's offshoot organization the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) are among those covert organizations named as unindicted coconspirators. Those organizations have vociferously protested inclusion on the Government's unindicted coconspirator list and have sought legal action in court to be removed from the list, action that remains pending. However, with today's guilty verdicts, it now becomes clearer the U.S. Government's evidence related to the unindicted coconspirators has been vindicated. The case, including the evidence related to those listed coconspirators, was accepted by the jury that returned guilty verdicts across the board.

It will be interesting to watch how other branches of the Government now proceed in their dealings with CAIR, ISNA and NAIT. Some Government agencies, including the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security and FBI...the very agencies involved in investigating and prosecuting the HLF case...have engaged in seemingly cozy "community relations" arrangements with these same organizations, even while the HLF prosecution was underway. CAIR even provided "sensitivity training" to FBI and DHS law enforcement personnel. Now the status of these organizations as coconspirators in a terrorism criminal case has been proven in a criminal trial, will Federal agencies continue these relationships? Close Congressional oversight from hereon would surely be warranted.