Former President Barack Obama’s administration approved taxpayer grants for a group that was identified by the U.S. government as being a terror organization, according to The Daily Wire. In fact, the group was connected to Osama Bin Laden, the former leader of al Qaeda who was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil that resulted in roughly 3,000 Americans being killed.
In 2014, the Obama administration approved the release of roughly $115,000 in taxpayer funds to Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), a terror group connected to al Qaeda and bin Laden. The report states that Obama administration officials approved the funds after the group had been designated by the U.S. Treasury as a terrorist-financing organization in 1997.
National Review reports that the ISRA received a $200,000 taxpayer-funded grant from the Obama administration, and that at least $115,000 went to the terror-financing group.
In July 2014, the National Review writes that the U.S. Agency for International Development approved $723,405 of U.S. taxpayer funds for the World Vision Inc. Of that, roughly $200,000 went to the ISRA — a sub-grantee — and then at least $115,000 reportedly went to the terror organization.
OFAC confirmed in Jan. 2015 that ISRA was on the list as a designated terrorist organization and denied World Vision from obtaining “a license to engage in transactions with ISRA.”
Despite all of this, it seems that the Obama administration ignored the Treasury’s determination and approved the funds.
Here’s the National Review’s analysis on the Treasury describing the ISRA’s known connections to terror groups:
“The story began in October 2004, when the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated the Khartoum-based Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA), also known as the Islamic African Relief Agency (IARA), as a terror-financing organization. It did so because of ISRA’s links to Osama bin Laden and his organization Maktab al-Khidamat (MK), the precursor of al-Qaeda.
The administration was warned that they were connected to a terror group who helped Bin Laden and al Qaeda, yet they still sent at least $100,000 of taxpayer funds to the organization.
While the Trump administration has placed a top priority on destroying terror groups in the region, this chilling report shines a big light on how the Obama administration literally funded a terrorist organization.
Many would agree that giving at least $115,000 to a group the U.S. government labeled as a terror organization shows how the Obama administration apparently did not take the threat or group seriously.
