RICHMOND, Va.— A Virginia judge on Tuesday ordered American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), a prominent anti-Israel advocacy group, to disclose its funding channels as part of an investigation by Republican attorney general Jason Miyares into allegations of terrorism financing.
AMP, a nonprofit group that is driving anti-Israel protests across the country, will now have to provide Miyares with access to its donor records and funding streams, which the state argues could show evidence that the U.S.-based organization is providing material support to overseas terrorist groups.
The case pivots around AMP’s failure for seven years to properly file basic tax forms allowing it to solicit donations in Virginia. Miyares used this lapse to initiate a wide ranging investigation into AMP, alleging in an October 2023 press statement that the group "may have used funds raised for impermissible purposes under state law, including benefitting or providing support to terrorist organizations."
The judge in Richmond’s circuit court agreed with the state’s arguments, saying that Miyares "acted in good faith" when he requested AMP’s financials and that the ask "was entirely in [his] statutory authority" to ensure the group is complying with state laws that bar support to terror groups and their affiliates. The ruling also noted AMP’s admittance that it failed to file the proper paperwork, though the organization said it has since rectified what it called an unintentional oversight.
The decision sets the stage for Miyares to obtain potentially years' worth of funding documents, including its donors and transaction records. The case has garnered national attention due to AMP’s status as one of the country’s leading anti-Israel forces, responsible for a wave of anti-Semitic protests on college campuses that have featured violence and vocal support for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
The case is also certain to increase public pressure on AMP as congressional Republicans probe the group’s funding streams for terrorism financing. AMP is also being sued by Israeli terror victims who allege the group and its allies serve "as collaborators and propagandists for Hamas."
Miyares touted the court’s decision in a press release, saying it affirms his office’s "jurisdiction to investigate possible violations of the Commonwealth’s charitable registration and solicitation law."
"I am pleased with the Court's decision," Miyares told the Washington Free Beacon.
In asking to have the case dismissed, AMP lawyer Christina Jump said the nonprofit group is now "in full compliance with Virginia law" and that Miyares’s broad request for donor documents violates the First Amendment. Jump describes the state’s case as "wide ranging and inflammatory," arguing that "there is no evidence" to indicate any financial support to terrorist groups abroad.
"The attorney general doesn’t have free reign to seek everything and anything it wants," Jump said, adding that AMP is happy to provide limited records related to its initial failure to properly register as an active nonprofit. "There is simply no validity to what the attorney general seeks here."
"Allegations from others" about AMP’s activities, Jump added, "doesn’t show that AMP has done anything inappropriate."
The judge, however, rejected that argument, paving the way for Miyares to obtain the full docket of requested documents, which include: "AMP’s finances, organizational structure and governance, its solicitation activities, and its potential ties to terrorist organizations," according to the attorney general’s initial legal filing.
Following the judge’s ruling, Jump told the Free Beacon that the court must clarify exactly what records Miyares will be allowed to access.
AMP, she said, "wants to clarify what compliance means and it's not clear what that means now."
"If compliance means providing information about every single donor and every single transaction," that would likely be opposed by the group and need to be taken up during a possible appeal.
AMP’s finances have long been dogged by accusations of alleged terrorism financing. The group has made national waves in the wake of Israel’s war on terror by driving campus unrest and fomenting anti-Israel fervor across the country. Demonstrations organized by the group have featured calls for violence, anti-Semitic rhetoric, and support for Hamas and its massacre.
In May, congressional investigators ordered the Treasury Department to turn over any so-called Suspicious Activity Reports pertaining to AMP and around 20 other nonprofits at the center of anti-Israel unrest. Lawmakers suspect these internal government documents could indicate that U.S. nonprofits are engaged in money laundering or terrorism financing. Republicans have also petitioned the IRS to pull the tax exempt status for many of these groups.
AMP is described by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as "the leading organization providing anti-Zionist training and education to students and Muslim community organizations in the country." It "promotes extreme anti-Israel views and has at times provided a platform for anti-Semitism under the guise of educating Americans about ‘the just cause of Palestine and the rights of self-determination.’"
AMP, the ADL says, "seeks to delegitimize and demonize the Jewish state. Its materials are prominently featured at its events and conferences, in its publications and through materials available on its website."
The group is led by executive director Hatem Bazian, also a lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley. He has promoted anti-Semitic cartoons depicting Jews celebrating murder. Bazian also has "advanced the conspiratorial claim that AIPAC wields undue influence in pressuring in the U.S. to back Israel, while claiming that Hamas has the right to resist Israel by resorting to violence against ‘the colonizer,’" according to the ADL.