How Hillary Clinton Mainstreamed Al-Qaeda Fundraiser Abdurahman Alamoudi
Right now, prisoner #47042-083, Abdurahman Alamoudi, sits in his cell in a federal prison in Ashland, Kentucky.
It’s a long way down from being one of Hillary Clinton’s favorite colleagues. Alamoudi organized White House events during the Bill Clinton administration. Under Hillary’s supervision, he held official positions: Alamoudi was strategically placed at the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department.
That is, until he was arrested and convicted in a bizarre Libyan intelligence/al-Qaeda assassination plot to kill the Saudi crown prince.
Later, he was identified by the Treasury Department as an Al-Qaeda fundraiser who had operated inside the United States.
Hillary Clinton and Abdurahman Alamoudi were no mere acquaintances. According to an affidavit filed in court by Georgetown professor John Esposito, Alamoudi was asked by Hillary Clinton to arrange the first White House Ramadan iftar dinner in 1996:
It appears that no media outlet has ever asked Hillary Clinton about her relationship to Alamoudi.
Under the Clinton administration, Alamoudi was tasked with founding and developing the Defense Department’s first-ever Muslim chaplain program. Alamoudi himself handpicked the Pentagon’s Muslim chaplain corps.
As I reported in 2010, one of those chaplain trainers was al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki.
The State Department, during the Clinton administration, appointed Alamoudi as a goodwill ambassador and sent him on six official taxpayer-funded trips to the Middle East. Remarkably, after Alamoudi’s 2003 arrest a federal agent testified in an affidavit about a recording of Alamoudi complaining to an audience that the 1998 al-Qaeda bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania did not kill enough Americans.
Years before he was helping Hillary Clinton arrange official dinners at the White House, Alamoudi had already been known to the FBI for al-Qaeda fundraising.
Yet Alamoudi became a regular face at the White House. Here, he is pictured with President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore:
After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the speechwriter for the “Blind Sheikh” Omar Abdel Rahman told the FBI that Alamoudi had been funneling $5000 payments from Osama bin Laden to Rahman. Rahman is currently serving a life sentence on terror charges for his role in the “Day of Terror” plot targeting New York landmarks.
In a July 2005 press release announcing a terror designation, the Treasury Department stated that Alamoudi “had raised money for al Qaida in the United States” and that his arrest was “a severe blow to al Qaida.”
Alamoudi’s donation to Hillary Clinton’s 2000 U.S. Senate campaign became an issue in October 2000. Then, Alamoudi was caught on video speaking in Lafayette Park across from the White House publicly announcing his support for Hamas and Hezbollah:
I have been labelled by the New York media as a supporter of Hamas. Anybody a supporter of Hamas here? [crowd roars] Anybody a supporter of Hamas here? [crowd roars again] Anybody a supporter of Hamas here? [crowd roars a third time] Here that, Bill Clinton? We are all supporters of Hamas. Allahu Akbar.I wish they also added that I am a supporter of Hezbollah. Anybody supports Hezbollah here? [crowd roars] Anybody supports Hezbollah here? [crowd roars again] Takbir! [crowd responds, “Allahu Akhbar”]
When questioned by the New York Daily News about his statement, Alamoudi first denied making it –he said that the reporters should “check their Arabic.”
When told that he had made the statement in English, Alamoudi responded by saying: “It was in English? Oh my god, I forgot.”
Days before Alamoudi publicly pledged his allegiance to two terror organizations designated as such by President Bill Clinton, he had just returned from a State Department-funded trip to Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Oman.
He received a $100-$200 honorarium every day, plus hotel and travel covered by U.S. taxpayers.
After news of Alamoudi’s statement in support of Hamas and Hezbollah reached the media, Hillary Clinton promptly returned Alamoudi’s political contribution to her U.S. Senate campaign.
Alamoudi’s undoing came when he was stopped in September 2003 at London’s Heathrow Airport with $340,000 of sequential $100 bills on his way to Syria. Prosecutors said they believed he was headed to deliver the money to Hamas and possibly other terror groups.
The money he was carrying was believed to have been provided by Libyan intelligence to Alamoudi as part of a plot involving al-Qaeda operatives in London to assassinate the Saudi crown prince. Alamoudi was sentenced to 23 years in prison after pleading guilty to his role in the assassination plot. His sentence was reduced in 2011 to 17 years under an agreement with the Obama Justice Department testimony in a terror-related trial.
As Alamoudi sits in his cell at the federal prison in Kentucky tomorrow night, will he be watching his old friend Hillary Clinton making her keynote speech to the Democratic Party National Convention?
Between now and Election Day in November, will anyone in the media ask presidential candidate Hillary Clinton about her role in mainstreaming her al-Qaeda fundraising friend?
