CAIR's tax-exempt status targeted as Cornyn moves to strip group after terror designations

FIRST ON FOX: A Senate Republican wants to nix the tax-exempt status of a national Muslim advocacy group that both Texas and Florida have designated as a terrorist organization.

Cornyn's bill would lump CAIR in with designated federal terrorist organizations, like Hamas, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, by extending that prohibition to include groups that provide material support or resources, such as finances, services or training to a terrorist organization.

The Texas Republican said in a statement to Fox News Digital he was moving ahead with the legislation, "because no organization who bankrolls terrorists should get a tax break, period."

CAIR fired back at Cornyn in a statement to Fox News Digital, where spokesperson Edward Ahmed Mitchell argued that the lawmaker knew "our civil rights organization is an independent, duly registered and legally compliant American 501(c)3 nonprofit that has spent over 30 years advocating for religious freedom, free speech and justice for all people."

"We understand why Senator Cornyn keeps trying to copy and outdo the antics of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, but both men should leave the American Muslim community out of their political grandstanding," Mitchell said.  

"CAIR has also shown moral consistency by opposing all forms of unjust violence, including both Israel's horrific genocide in Gaza and Hamas' attacks on Israeli civilians dating back to the suicide bombings of the 1990s," he continued. "Our opposition to terrorism even led ISIS to call for the assassination of our leadership. Senator Cornyn should sit down with Texas Muslims instead of trying to whip up fear of them for political gain."

Cornyn's bid to revoke the organization's tax-exempt status comes after both the governors of Texas and Florida designated CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign terrorist and transnational criminal organizations earlier this year. CAIR has long argued that it is not connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is affiliated with offshoot federally designated terrorist organizations, like Hamas.

Fox News Digital did not immediately hear back from CAIR for comment on Cornyn's legislation.