Hamas-Linked Cash Trail Vanishes In California

The word Terrorism highlighted among other words.

California funneled more than $7 million in taxpayer money to a group critics call “Hamas-adjacent,” and no one in the old Biden-era bureaucracy can clearly explain where the cash went.

Story Snapshot

Over $7.2 million in public funds went to CAIR-California for immigration and refugee services, with watchdogs alleging the money has effectively “disappeared.”
A formal complaint urges the Trump DOJ to launch a forensic audit and permanently cut CAIR-CA off from federal accreditation and funding.
The fight exposes how California’s woke spending machine steered security and social-service grants toward controversial allies after Oct. 7.
The controversy is part of a broader national battle over whether taxpayer dollars are reaching groups accused of ideological proximity to Hamas.

Watchdog Says Millions In California Grants Went To A Hamas-Adjacent Ecosystem

Intelligent Advocacy Network, a California-based watchdog group, has filed a detailed complaint alleging that CAIR-California received more than $7.2 million in taxpayer funds between roughly 2022 and 2024 for refugee and immigrant resettlement work, with little transparency on how that money was ultimately used. The group describes CAIR-CA as “Hamas-adjacent,” arguing that its leaders’ public positions and relationships place it far outside the kind of neutral, accountable partner taxpayers expect for sensitive humanitarian programs.

The complaint pushes the U.S. Department of Justice to launch a full forensic audit of CAIR-CA’s grants and to examine whether federal accreditation through the Executive Office for Immigration Review should be renewed. According to the watchdog, CAIR-CA’s accreditation, which opened the door to some of this public funding, expired in February 2025 and should not be restored. That expired status now gives the Trump administration a direct opportunity to clamp down on suspect grant pipelines built during the prior administration.

How A Refugee-Services Program Turned Into A National-Security Flashpoint

The funding controversy did not emerge in a vacuum; it grew out of California’s rapid expansion of refugee and immigrant programs in recent years, where CAIR-CA positioned itself as a central legal-aid and advocacy provider. Those programs accelerated after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, when the Gaza war triggered a wave of activism on U.S. campuses and in coastal blue states. Researchers warning about “foreign terror pipelines” argue that some nonprofits and academic networks effectively legitimized or platformed Hamas-aligned figures under the banner of human rights.

That broader backdrop is crucial for understanding why this case resonates with conservatives nationwide. For years, critics have pointed to documents from earlier terrorism prosecutions and policy reports noting ideological, personnel, or historic-network ties between certain U.S. Muslim advocacy groups and Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations, even as those groups avoided formal terrorist designation. CAIR, including its California network, has consistently denied any terror links. Yet the public sees the same pattern: left-leaning governments outsourcing sensitive work to highly politicized actors, while basic accountability around money and messaging goes missing.

Newsom-Era Priorities Helped Legitimize Controversial Partners

During the Newsom years, California’s political class elevated CAIR-CA as a go-to stakeholder on issues of community security and hate crimes. When the state announced tens of millions of dollars for security around synagogues, mosques, and other faith institutions after Oct. 7, CAIR-CA leaders were publicly welcomed as partners in the rollout. That endorsement from the governor’s office helped cement the group’s image as a mainstream civil-rights organization, even as critics argued its rhetoric on Israel and “resistance” blurred dangerously close to apologizing for Hamas.

For taxpayers already angry about homelessness, crime, and collapsing infrastructure, the idea that California institutions were simultaneously steering millions into a Hamas-adjacent ecosystem feels like confirmation of everything they feared about woke governance. Money that should have strengthened border integrity, law enforcement, or support for truly vulnerable families instead became a political reward for allies who push divisive narratives at home and equivocate about terror abroad. Under Trump’s renewed America First agenda, that model of governance is exactly what many voters expected to see dismantled.

Trump DOJ Faces Test On Cutting Off Questionable Nonprofits

The federal role in this story revolves around accreditation and eligibility for funding. Through EOIR legal-access programs, DOJ effectively decides which nonprofits can represent immigrants in official proceedings and tap into related funding streams. Watchdogs argue that continuing to accredit CAIR-CA, given its ideological posture and unresolved questions around $7.2 million in grants, would amount to federal complicity in laundering taxpayer money through a Hamas-adjacent infrastructure. They want the Trump DOJ to draw a hard line: no accreditation, no federal dollars, and no more business as usual.

Waste of the Day: California Funds Hamas-Adjacent Group H/T @JeremyPortnoy https://t.co/EbDZGyTYO0 via @ConservNewsView

— Conservative News and Views (@ConservNewsView) December 9, 2025

Congress has already begun to grapple with the broader pattern. Measures like the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act were written to keep federal dollars away from nonprofits accused of aiding or abetting terror-linked actors, even indirectly. Those bills stalled when Democrats controlled the agenda and civil-liberties lobbies framed them as overreach. With a Trump White House again and voters exhausted by years of appeasement and fiscal abuse, pressure is building for a tougher, clearer standard about who gets access to the public purse.

What This Means For Conservatives Watching Their Tax Dollars

For conservatives, the California case is a vivid example of how vague “community partnership” language can mask hard-edged ideological choices. When bureaucrats hand out multi-million-dollar contracts to groups praised in progressive circles but distrusted by ordinary Americans, they are not simply promoting diversity; they are actively shifting power and resources into networks that oppose core U.S. allies and blur lines around terrorism. Even if CAIR-CA never faces a formal legal terror designation, the unresolved questions about money, messaging, and loyalties should trigger the strictest scrutiny.

Trump supporters who have watched Washington pour money into foreign wars, open-border NGOs, and woke university bureaucracies recognize the same pattern here: the people who play by the rules get lectured and taxed, while well-connected activists cash in and demand more. The California grants fight offers a concrete test of whether this new administration will finally match rhetoric with action—shutting off questionable pipelines, enforcing real audits, and making sure that every public dollar reflects American security, constitutional values, and respect for the taxpayers who earned it.