On ISNA and DOJ: Response to Farah and Emerson

By Daveed Gartenstein-Ross

Both Douglas Farah and Steven Emerson have taken issue with my Monday post on DOJ's attendance of the ISNA conference. This entry will deal with the issues raised in both of their posts.

First, I again emphasize that the DOJ is not in fact a "co-sponsor" of the ISNA conference. The Justice Department will indeed, at this point, be attending -- having one of the 500 booths at the bazaar-style event -- but this does not constitute co-sponsorship.

Second, I would like to address the national security division's approval of DOJ's attendance. They did indeed approve of this, as Doug concedes in his blog: "While the National Security division did then accept the decision, members of the Counterterrorism section remain apoplectic about the decision to do anything with an un-indicted co-conspirator." DOJ's counterterrorism section is subordinate to the national security division. Just because the national security division signed off on this decision does not make it the right choice, but it does speak to whether DOJ's civil rights division acted inappropriately when it decided to attend the ISNA conference. I believe that the civil rights division did act appropriately: aware of the ongoing HLF trial, they sought the national security division's approval, and were briefed on some of the facts that would come forward in trial before deciding to have the booth at the ISNA conference.

Doug is also correct that a number of attorneys within the counterterrorism are quite unhappy with this decision: for that reason, I agree with Doug's assertion that it was wrong in my blog entry to "speculate on the reporter's sources" (whom someone I spoke with referred to as an "armchair prosecutor"). Yesterday I spoke with a well-informed and reliable source who opposes DOJ's attendance of the ISNA conference. He said that this was not the consensus view within the counterterrorism section, but is probably the "plurality" view: that is, of those who are aware of the background surrounding the decision to attend the ISNA conference, the people who think DOJ should not be there outweigh those who think it should attend. However, he also agrees that the civil rights division was right to approach the national security division: "They have to assume that the person speaking on behalf of the national security division was speaking on behalf of the counterterrorism section." I have not been able to ascertain whether the chief of the counterterrorism section registered a protest against the national security division's recommendation. If so, the lack of coordination between the national security division and counterterrorism section would be truly disturbing. But the bottom line is that many of the attorneys in DOJ's civil rights division are far more dedicated and do a better job than people in the counterterrorism field often give them credit for, and I feel that they took too hard a hit in the initial coverage of DOJ's attendance of the ISNA event.

Third, I am still skeptical that this will undermine the HLF prosecution. The source I spoke with who opposes DOJ's attendance said that he is nonetheless "sanguine about the HLF prosecution" since the government met with the likes of Abdurrahman Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian in the past and yet was able to successfully pursue prosecutions against them. (This should not be taken as an endorsement -- by the source or myself -- of the government's past relationships with Alamoudi and al-Arian.) I think the possible effect on the prosecution is lessened in this case by the fact that ISNA is not even a defendant, but rather listed as an unindicted co-conspirator. Thus I'm not persuaded by Steve's assertion that the attendance of ISNA "can be used by defense attorneys to argue that the prosecutors are not on the same page as other sections within the DOJ, who are not at all concerned with ISNA." This would be a concern if ISNA were a defendant: it is less likely for an unindicted co-conspirator.

Fourth, the bottom line is that Muslim outreach is a difficult, complex business. The government has made some terrible choices about organizations and individuals to whom it reached out in the past. I am quite certain that it will be stung again in the future. But the initial reports in this case were overblown and do not fairly represent what the attorneys in DOJ's civil rights division were thinking. My initial post does not constitute an endorsement of DOJ's attendance of ISNA. Rather, it puts forward a different take on the story that came out in the Washington Times: that is, correcting a factual inaccuracy, questioning whether the prosecution would actually be harmed, and putting forward the thinking of DOJ's civil rights division.

The decision could still be wrong despite all of that. But I think it is important not to overstate what DOJ is doing at the ISNA conference, to give consideration to the position of DOJ's civil rights division, and to formulate our own ideas about Muslim outreach -- based on the fairest possible analysis of the situation.

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