On 10-22-03, Ashcroft indicted Abdurahman Alamoudi, a consultant to the Pentagon on the Chaplain Program for more than a decade, now accused of helping Osama bin Laden and Hamas. According to John Loftus, "What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist. He's the super lobbyist. Newt Gingrich's guy, the one the NRA calls on, head of American taxpayers. He is the guy that was hired by Alamoudi to head up the Islamic institute and he's the registered agent for Alamoudi, personally, and for the Islamic Institute. Grover Norquist's best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things. He got extreme right wing Muslim people to be the gatekeepers in the White House. That's why moderate Americans couldn't speak out after 9/11. Moderate Muslims couldn't get into the White House because Norquist's friends were blocking their access."

According to Jeff Jacoby, Sami "Al-Arian is not the only Islamist zealot who has gained access to Bush and his inner circle. Consider, for example, Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council, an extremist group with a record of defending terrorism and denouncing the United States. Like Al-Arian, Alamoudi attended the Rove briefing in the White House in 2001; a year earlier, he was one of several Muslims invited to meet with candidate Bush in Austin, Texas. Alamoudi is certainly influential - but he is also an open backer of terrorism. In October 2000, he was cheered at a pro-Palestinian rally in Washington, D.C., when he declared: 'We are all supporters of Hamas.... I am also a supporter of Hezbollah.' Three months later he was in Beirut for a terrorist summit, along with leaders of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda. Is Alamoudi really the sort of Muslim with whom the administration should be involved?"

MediaWhoresOnline reports that Bill O'Reilly actually said the following on 2/27/03: "Americans, and indeed our foreign allies who actively work against our military once the war is underway, will be considered enemies of the state by me. Just fair warning to you, Barbra Streisand and others who see the world as you do. I don't want to demonize anyone [like I do every week], but anyone who hurts this country in a time like this, well. Let's just say you will be spotlighted." The last person "spotlighted" by O'Reilly was Sami Al-Arian, which led directly to his indictment on 50 charges of terrorism by John Ashcroft. Bill O'Reilly is the most un-American "spotlighter" since Joseph McCarthy, and should be put on a shark-friendly boat to Cuba! [Note: on 2/28, O'Reilly said he "made a mistake" and would only call war opponents "bad Americans", not "un-American." He also scrubbed his 2/27 transcript so no one would ever know how dangerous he really is - drop us a note if you have a tape.]

Forward reports, "Ari Fleischer told reporters that the Secret Service had alerted the White House that Al-Arian was under investigation, but he said that such a warning is not necessarily grounds to block a visit. Fleischer noted that Yasser Arafat has been to the White House many times. Critics were unimpressed with the explanations. 'Why did Bush and his aides do it? Either they think there is an electoral advantage, or they don't give a damn,' said Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York. 'And if in fact the Secret Service warned them about this person, then there is no excuse.'... Al-Arian, in fact, boasted of having helped get out the Florida Muslim vote for Bush in 2000. Footage aired this week by NBC News showed Al-Arian telling a Muslim crowd at a fundraiser last April: 'I wanted to talk about the last elections because I think I personally played a big role in [s]electing Bush. Gore ignored us, Bush did not ignore us, in fact, everything we asked him for he did.'"

Salon's Scott Rosenberg writes, "The arrest last week of the U. of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian on terrorism charges quickly became an occasion for gloating among commentators on the right -- their latest opportunity to tar as a traitor anyone who advocates due process and minority rights during the 'war on terrorism.' John Podhoretz, for instance, launched a broadside in the NY Post against writers who have raised questions about the Al-Arian case, including the NY Times' Nicholas Kristof and Salon's Eric Boehlert, calling them 'idiots.' Mr. Podhoretz, here are a couple names you'll now need to add to your 'idiot' list: George Bush and Karl Rove. That's because a little problem has emerged for the 'dare call it treason' crowd: In June 2001, it turns out, Al-Arian paid a visit to the Bush White House -- apparently as the specially invited guest of Bush's political guru, Rove, who was meeting with a Muslim-American group as part of a strategy to line up Islamic support."

Rightwinger David Frum writes, "The arrest of Sami al-Arian on terrorism charges marks an epoch not only in the War on Terror, but in the history of the Bush administration... Not only were the al-Arians not avoided by the Bush White House - they were actively courted. Candidate Bush allowed himself to be photographed with the al-Arian family while campaigning in Florida. Candidate Bush denounced the immigration laws that detained - and ultimately deported - [al-Arian's brother-in-law] Mazen al-Najjar... The al-Arian case was not a solitary lapse. The Bush campaign in 2000 very determinedly reached out to Muslim voters. Indeed, Muslim-Americans may have tipped the election to Bush... That outreach campaign opened relationships between the Bush campaign and some very disturbing persons in the Muslim-American community. Many of those disturbing persons were invited to stand beside Bush at post-9/11 events, like his meeting with Muslim community leaders at the Massachusetts Ave. mosque."

Insight, the Moonie magazine, reports that Sami Amin Al-Arian was invited to a White House briefing on 6-22-01 led by Karl Rove (Cheney cancelled at the last minute due to negative publicity) despite being under investigation for a leadership role in Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al-Arian's name would have set alarms ringing at the Secret Service, so how did he get an invitation the White House? An anonymous associate of the GOP's top Islamic influence-peddler, Grover Norquist, insists he specifically warned the White House about al-Arian. So who ignored Norquist and overruled the Secret Service? There's only one person with the power to bring a suspected terrorist right into the White House - Karl Rove. We demand a full investigation!

Before he was arrested as a top terror suspect, Newsweek reported that Sami Amin al-Arian "is one of the country's leading advocates for repeal of secret-evidence laws (his brother-in-law was jailed for more than three years on allegations an INS judge dismissed in December). When Bush decried the use of secret evidence during the campaign, the elder Al-Arian campaigned vigorously for the Republican at mosques and Islamic cultural centers. 'We certainly delivered him many more than 537 votes,' he says, referring to Bush's margin of victory in the election." Not only did Bush steal Florida, he stole it with the help of an accused terrorist! Ever the opportunistic hypocrites, Bush and Ashcroft have since shredded the Constitution to INCREASE evidence secrecy with the likes of Patriot Acts I and II! Impeach Bush Now!

Just as George W. Bush denied knowing "Kenny Boy" Lay, now he's denying his connections with Professor Sami Amin al-Arian, who was just charged with being the US leader of a terrorist group. ''Then-Governor Bush just walked around greeting people,'' Buchan said. Al-Arian did not contribute money or volunteer work to the Bush campaign, she said. But Newsweek reports that al-Arian got out the Muslim vote for Bush in Florida, ''He was a Bush supporter,'' said Robert McKee, an attorney who is representing al-Arian in a legal dispute with the university. ''As close as the election in Florida was, Sami may have put him over the top. He got out the vote in the Muslim community in Florida.'' Later, his son was invited to the White House for a meeting related to Bush's "faith-based" initiative.

WashPost reports that Sami al-Arian, "a former university professor indicted this week as a terrorist leader attended a 6-22-2001 group meeting in the White House complex with Karl Rove. Al-Arian, a former computer engineering professor at the University of South Florida, had been under investigation by the FBI for at least six years at the time of the June 2001 briefing for [the American Muslim Council]. Numerous news accounts also had said federal agents suspected Al-Arian of links to terrorism. Al-Arian was indicted Thursday on charges that he conspired to aid suicide bombings in Israel and the Palestinian territories and has served for years as a leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization." Cheney was supposed to lead the meeting, but he cancelled after "the Jerusalem Post had run a front-page article headlined, 'Cheney to host pro-terrorist Muslim group.'" Al-Arian campaigned for Bush in Florida mosques and was photographed with Bush on 3-12-2000.