Texas Attorney General and MAGA culture warrior Ken Paxton on Thursday sued the Muslim Brotherhood, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and CAIR’s Austin, Houston and DFW chapters.
The suit — filed as the clock ticks down on the Republican U.S. Senate primary in which Paxton’s a candidate — is intended “to ban the terrorist organizations from operating in Texas and to stop their violent ideology from spreading across the state,” his office said in a statement.
However, CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, issued a statement blasting the AG’s suit as “another frivolous, politically motivated anti-Muslim publicity stunt that wastes more taxpayer dollars.”
To be sure, Paxton’s legal action comes as Texas Republican candidates have amped up anti-Islamic rhetoric ahead of what’s likely to be punishing midterms for the GOP. Paxton’s key opponent in the upcoming primary, incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn recently unveiled a seven-figure ad buy in which he accuses CAIR of being a terrorist group while providing no supporting evidence.
CAIR likened its battle against Paxton to that of Jolt Initiative, an Austin-based Latino voter registration group that prevailed against Paxton in court last week. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Pitman halted the AG’s attempt to disband the group, saying he had no legal justification to do so.
“Just as Mr. Paxton’s attempt to shut down a Latino voting rights group failed last week, his latest attempt to silence a minority group also appears doomed to fail,” CAIR and CAIR-Texas said in a shared statement. “The people of Texas elected Mr. Paxton to serve them, not to silence them for daring to oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza. CAIR-Texas plans to continue serving and protecting the people of Texas long after Ken Paxton leaves office.”
In his statement, Paxton claims CAIR is funneling money to Hamas as an “American chapter” of an international terrorist organization.
“The terrorist ties are unquestionable,” Paxton stated. “For example, CAIR-Texas’s founding board member was convicted in 2008 of funneling $12.4 million to Hamas through the Holy Land Foundation, and CAIR was named an unindicted co-conspirator in that case. As the lawsuit notes, CAIR is undeniably the American face of an international terrorist organization.”
Paxton’s statement appears to reference the trial of Ghassan Elashi, a former CAIR board member who was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to 65 years in federal prison for providing material support to Hamas.
However, CAIR itself has never been charged with a crime. What’s more, the group’s had hundreds of board members, meaning it shouldn’t be held responsible for the personal actions of each one, officials there maintain.
Further, CAIR has issued repeated public condemnations of terrorist activity.
“We unequivocally condemn all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group,” the group said it a statement that’s been on its website since 2009. A page on the site dedicated to Dispelling Rumors About CAIR also points out the organization has issued condemnations against the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israeli citizens.
Even so, Paxton’s statement asserts that CAIR operates in violation of Texas laws, including a ban on any entity engaging in terrorism, the prohibition of transnational criminal organizations owning property and public nuisance statutes barring radical groups from engaging in gang activities.
“Sharia law and the jihadists who follow Sharia law have no business being in Texas,” Paxton said. “I am in full support of Gov. [Greg] Abbott’s lawful declaration that CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood are foreign terrorist organizations, and it’s imperative that they are stopped from operating in Texas. Radical Islamic terrorists are antithetical to law and order, endanger the people of Texas, and are an existential threat to our values.”
But Abbott’s and Paxton’s anti-Muslim claims already face a legal challenge.
Last fall, the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA), the CAIR Legal Defense Fund (CAIR LDF) and Akeel & Valentine, PLC filed a federal suit against both men to block enforcement of what it calls Abbott’s “unconstitutional and defamatory” Nov. 18 proclamation, which decreed CAIR a “foreign terrorist organization” and threatened civil penalties against the group if it continues to operate in Texas.
CAIR has also already defeated Abbott in court three separate times before over matters relating to the state’s anti-boycott law, its attack on the free speech of a Texas schoolteacher and its attempts to bar student criticism of Israel.
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