A new ad by the Congressional Leadership Fund goes after Virginia Democrat Abigail Spanberger for her time teaching at the controversial Islamic Saudi Academy, calling it her "dark secret." The group had previously revealed her employment at the school better known as "Terror High."
The Saudi-funded Virginia school garnered national attention after numerous students of the school went on to join terrorist groups. The ad also points to Spanberger's support for the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran, which is labeled in the ad as the "leading sponsor of terrorism."
"Abigail Spanberger has spent her entire campaign trying to hide the fact that she taught at a terrorist breeding ground and supported giving billions to the leading sponsor of terrorism," said Courtney Alexander, the group's communications director. "Spanberger’s dark secrets and dangerous policies prove she can’t be trusted in Congress."
Spanberger taught at the Islamic Saudi Academy in 2002 and 2003—a piece of her résumé that unsurprisingly didn't make it onto her campaign website but was revealed by the government in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
The school drew the ire from politicians on both sides of the aisle because of its radical teachings and the students it produced.
One student, former valedictorian Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, received a 30-year prison sentence in 2005 for providing support to al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush, charges that led Democratic senator Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) to question whether the academy was a breeding ground for terrorism on American soil.
Three years earlier in 2002, three other graduates of the academy were blocked from traveling to Israel due to suspicion that they were traveling with goals of carrying out a suicide attack. The FBI said a letter was found in one of the men's luggage discussing "jihad" and "traveling to Allah."
The State Department recommended shuttering the school over concerns it was promoting religious intolerance through its curriculum, according to the Washington Post. An investigation found textbooks in first grade classrooms with passages teaching "that all religions, other than Islam, are false, including that of the Jews, Christians and all others."