Title: CAIR’s Secret War Chest Fuels Mamdani’s Mayoral Bid
In a stunning disclosure, a political action committee with deep ties to an organization branded by federal investigators as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a terrorism financing trial poured $120,000 into Zohran Mamdani’s insurgent mayoral campaign—arming a radical socialist with stealth funding that his opponents never saw coming.
The Unity and Justice Fund PAC traces directly to the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It operates out of the same Washington, D.C., address. It shares the same executives. And it just became the single largest donor to Mamdani.
A sister vehicle, Unity Lab PAC—run by the Sacramento chapter of CAIR—kicked in another $23,500. Campaign filings show both outfits are staffed by CAIR’s own operatives: Basim Elkarra, former executive director of CAIR California, sits as treasurer; Tasneem Manjra, CAIR Sacramento communications lead, holds the presidency.
This is not charity. It’s political warfare.
CAIR Action, the group’s voter-mobilization arm, has spent months targeting Muslim-American precincts in Queens, Brooklyn and beyond. Linda Sarsour—longtime anti-Israel agitator and Mamdani mentor—publicly boasts that “once November 4th comes, it will be our Muslim-American community that lifted Zohran to power.”
CAIR California raked in over $17 million in 2023 alone, its filings confirm. Yet rather than invest in mainstream civil-rights work, a significant share of those donations is being funneled into the left’s radical fringe.
Meanwhile, Mamdani himself has a track record of praising convicted terrorists. In 2017, performing under the moniker Mr. Cardamon, he dropped a rap called “Salaam” that includes the lines, “My love to the Holy Land Five. You better look ’em up.” Those “Five” were leaders of the Holy Land Foundation, convicted in 2008 of funneling money to Hamas.
Republican lawmakers are demanding answers. Senator Tom Cotton and Rep. Elise Stefanik have formally requested a Treasury Department probe into CAIR’s tax status, citing its “deep ties to terrorist organizations” as grounds for immediate suspension of its tax-exempt privileges.
Cotton wrote to IRS Commissioner Billy Long: “CAIR’s privileged nonprofit status should be revoked. It is a reward reserved for honest charities, not covert political militias.”
Stefanik added: “American voters deserve transparency. We cannot allow foreign-linked extremist groups to clandestinely bankroll socialist agitators in our cities.”
A concurrent push in Congress seeks to strip CAIR of federal funding altogether, pointing to its repeated finger-pointing at mainstream Muslim charities and its refusal to disavow Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Zohran Mamdani’s campaign now stands exposed as the latest front in an ideological war—one where shadowy PACs and extremist backers bankroll polarization and chaos. New Yorkers deserve to know: who really calls the shots in this mayoral race, and what price will they demand once in office?
As election day nears, every voter must ask: are we electing a servant of New York City, or the beneficiary of a foreign-linked political machine that doesn’t share our values? The answer will shape the city’s future—and the soul of our nation.
