Concerns about Faisal Gill

At this time, Faisal Gill is seeking the Republican nomination to run for the 51st District of the Virginia House of Delegates, a geographical area which includes portions of Prince William County. On June 2, the Republican convention will meet to decide which candidate will represent the Party in the November election.

Before the Republican Party decides as to Mr. Gill's viability as their candidate of choice, he might first need to answer some questions about his connections with Abdurahman Alamoudi, now serving a penitentiary sentence for money laundering to terrorists. The concerns about Mr. Gill are several. According to Michelle Malkin on June 22, 2004, in her citing of Salon in "Who Is Faisal Gill?":

[Gill was] briefly removed from his job [at DHS] in March when the Federal Bureau of Investigation discovered he had failed to disclose his association with Abdurahman Alamoudi, a jailed American Muslim leader. Alamoudi was indicted last year on terrorism-related money-laundering charges and now claims to have been part of a plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah.

After a flurry of interagency meetings, however, Homeland Security decided to leave the policy director, Faisal Gill, in place, according to two government officials with knowledge of the Alamoudi investigation. A White House political appointee with close ties to Republican power broker Grover Norquist and no apparent background in intelligence, Gill has access to top-secret information on the vulnerability of America's seaports, aviation facilities and nuclear power plants to terrorist attacks.

The FBI raised concerns with Homeland Security officials in March after discovering that Gill had failed to list on security clearance documents his work in 2001 with the American Muslim Council, the officials said. The advocacy group....was controlled by Alamoudi...

At the conclusion of her article, Ms. Malkin says the following:

How does a guy with no intelligence background get appointed director of intelligence policy at DHS--and how does he keep that job and his security clearance after committing two possible felonies by failing to list his two foreign-funded employers on sworn government forms?!?!?!?!

This article by Frank Gaffney also brings up some matters of concern about Mr. Gill and Mr. Norquist. Both Northern Virginiastan and I have previously blogged about both Gill and Norquist.

Not unexpectedly, the biography at Mr. Gill's web site fails to mention any of the above information. Perhaps the questions have been resolved. If so, I am unaware of any such answers.

I suspect that answers have not been forthcoming because, today, RedState posted this article about Faisal Gill. Excerpt:

This is one of those issues that troubles me. You don't want to judge a man by his ethnicity or background, but there are more and more people troubled by the candidacy of Faisal Gill. He's running for 51st District Delegate against Julie Lucas and some of the grassroots guys are concerned.

I don't know the guy, but a cursory review of Michelle Malkin's site gives me pause. It seems Mr. Gill, when he worked for Homeland Security, failed to disclose his association with Abdurahman Alamoudi, a muslim leader indicted on terrorism related money laundering charges. This is compounded by Gill's work with the American Muslim Council, which encouraged muslims not to cooperate with the FBI after 9/11.

Also troubling is that a lawyer connected to Gill is rumored to be the Washington Post leaker of the NSA wiretapping program....

In the intense race to win the upcoming election after the Republican Party's defeat in the midterm elections of November 2006, one can only hope that the GOP is paying attention to matters of national security as those matters may pertain to Faisal Gill. And if any of the above disturbing questions about Mr. Gill's associations remain open, the GOP will appear soft on national security.

[Hat-tip to Greg, who emailed me information about Faisal Gill's candidacy]