Investigative Project on Terrorism, founder under fire

An anti-muslim group called the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) is accused of using informants based in Muslim advocacy groups, including the Council on American-islamic Relations’ local Columbus office.

CAIR, a Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization with offices across the country, got information last year about moles in different Muslim organizations, including one in their own, working with IPT.

For several years, Romin Iqbal, its executive director and legal director of CAIR-OHIO who has been with the organization since 2006, has been recording network meetings and sharing information regarding CAIR’S national advocacy work with IPT for more than a decade, according to a Tuesday release from the organization’s Ohio chapter.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism is a known anti-muslim group based in Washington, D.C. The group bills itself as a nonprofit research group with a mission to “expose the activities of terrorist networks and supporters in the U.S. and abroad and to educate the public about this threat.”

The organization was founded in 1995 by Steve Emerson, a pundit, former journalist and self-proclaimed expert on Islamic and Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

The Dispatch reached out to IPT’S D.C. office Wednesday by phone and by email with questions regarding its relationship to Iqbal. IPT did not answer the Dispatch’s questions, but it did send a statement criticizing CAIR.

“While the Investigative Project on Terrorism has never and will never monitor the wider American Muslim community,” the statement said, “it will not hesitate to uncover and publicly expose radical Islamist activity on American soil by groups like CAIR, which threaten our national security.”

Critics, however, say IPT is an antiislamic hate group.

According to the Islamophobia Network –– a project of the liberal Center for American Progress that tracks anti-islamic groups and donors –– IPT uses “unsubstantiated threats that portray Muslims as dangerous to accrue funding” and that Emerson has a reputation “for fabricating evidence to substantiate his ravings about Muslim extremism.”

IPT had moles within multiple Muslim organizations and was collaborating with the Israeli government, said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy director of CAIR’S national office in Washington, D.C. at a news conference Thursday morning. There are still many unanswered questions though.

“We alleged these things publicly … and Emerson has not denied these allegations,” Mitchell said. “That is telling.”

Whitney Siddiqi, CAIR-OHIO community affairs director, called IPT a “hate group for Muslims.”

“It is dangerous,” she said. “We know that Islamophobia has been on the rise over the past two decades and when you are spreading hate against Muslims it is not simply something you’re just posting or saying to someone, that has a direct impact on our lives.”

IPT has taken repeated aim at CAIR over the years. Its website is host to dozens of articles criticizing CAIR, its national leaders and advocacy work.

“They have called us (CAIR) a terrorist organization, so that alone is really disturbing,” Siddiq said. “It’s obviously false, it is dangerous in general, for all Muslims, for all Muslim Americans.”

IPT earned $2.2 million in revenue in 2018, according to 990 forms filed with the IRS.

Its website says that the group “accepts no funding from outside the United States, or from any governmental agency or political or religious institutions.” Donations are made through its fundraising arm, the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation, which is listed as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization.

A 2010 investigation by the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville found that Emerson collected nearly $3.4 million by channeling funds from the Investigative Project on Terrorism Foundation to his for-profit business, D.c.-based consulting company SAE Productions. The nonprofit and forprofit share the same D.C. address on Connecticut Avenue.

IPT has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations from other groups that promote Islamophobia, according to the Islamophobia Network.

Between 2009 and 2012, IPT received $1,409,585 in funding from the Middle East Forum –– a conservative think tank founded in 1990 to “promote American interests in the Middle East and protect Western values from Middle Eastern threats” –– according to the Islamophobia Network.

Emerson has “a history of promoting falsified information and conspiracy theories about Islam and Muslims,” according to The Bridge Initiative, a Georgetown University research project on Islamophobia.

The Center for American Progress describes Emerson as a “misinformation expert” who “generate[s] false facts and materials used by political leaders, grassroots groups, and the media.”

Emerson started his career as a journalist and documentary filmmaker.

He rose to prominence in 1994 when he produced the documentary “Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America” that aired on PBS. The documentary explored “militant Islamic support networks and terrorist groups secretly operating on American soil,” according to a description of the film.

Emerson’s documentary won multiple journalism awards, used to support the anti-terrorism Patriot Act by Congress, and was distributed to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives by several members in 1995.

With Emerson’s fame came criticism though.

Some of Emerson’s books and articles have been chastised for plagiarism and “marred by factual errors”, according to a 1999 report by media watchdog group FAIR. He’s also been called out for fallacious claims

According to FAIR, Emerson’s “most notorious gaffe” was on CBS News in 1995 when he claimed that the Oklahoma City bombing showed “a Middle Eastern trait” because it “was done with the intent to inflict as many casualties as possible.”

After that, many news organizations waned their interest in Emerson.

Emerson remained a regular pundit on several Fox News shows.

He appeared on the network multiple times in April 2013 after the Boston Marathon bombings, claiming that the bombings were a result of Saudi Arabian nationals, which was false.

Emerson appeared on Fox News again in January 2015 claiming that, “There are actual cities” like Birmingham, England, “that are totally Muslim where non-muslims just simply don’t go in.” Politicfact’s Truth Meter rated the claim a “pants on fire!” lie. Emerson later apologized.

When FAIR asked about how Emerson is perceived by fellow journalists in 1999, author Seymour Hersh replied: “He’s poison.”

Emerson largely disappeared from the public media after 2015, but his work with IPT was still very active.

Evidence found by a forensic investigator hired by CAIR found that Emerson cursed at, threatened and mistreated his employees for failing to produce enough content, according to Thursday’s CAIR news conference.

The evidence also showed that Emerson communicated with and provided information to Israeli intelligence with the office of then-prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to CAIR.

Emails provide by investigators during the news conference showed Emerson asking questions to members of Netanyahu’s staff as well as those same staff members seeking information from Emerson and IPT. Emerson offered to send one staff member a copy of his latest documentary.

Nihad Awad, the national director of CAIR, called on the U.S. government to take action and protect the Muslim American community against hate groups and foreign influence.

“A foreign government using an American organization to spy on an American organization and the Muslim community should be alarming, should be a sign of concern to the government, to the American public and also to any civil rights organization that acts and performs its works under the law,” he said.

Dispatch reporter Danae King contributed to this article. shendrix@dispatch.com @sheridan120