Hillary and the Ground Zero Mosque Imam

By Thomas Lifson

It is time for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to step up to the plate and investigate Imam Feisel Abdul Rauf, who is currently touring the Middle East at the expense of American Taxpayers as an envoy of her Department of State. Claudia Rossett, one of America's premier journalists, today reveals several disturbing facts that more than warrant an official investigation:

...what's going on with the web site of his Cordoba Initiative? Last week, after someone in his Malaysia office referred all questions back to his office in New York, the phone number and address of his office in Malaysia quietly vanished from the Cordoba web site. Roughly around the same time, as Anne Bayefsky noticed and explained in a Pajamas Media post this week, Rauf's Cordoba Initiative web site also erased a photo showing Rauf meeting in Malaysia a while back with an Iranian official, Mohammad Javad Larijani - who, as Bayefsky explained, "was the Iranian official who defended Iran's abysmal human rights record before the UN Human Rights Council in February and June of this year."

Friday evening, after Obama gave his de facto endorsement to Rauf's Cordoba/Park 51 Ground Zero mosque and Islamic center project, I took another look at the morphing Cordoba Initiative web site, and discovered it now has a note on the main page saying "Website is currently under construction." (Grab your screenshots now - parts of this site are already sliding down the Memory Hole).

What's going on? Why the vanishings of the Malaysian address, the Rauf-Larijani Iranian connection photo, and the elusive Imam Feisal himself? Have either Obama or Bloomberg made even the smallest effort to inquire about what use will be made, or by whom, of these de facto endorsements they are handing out?

Secretary Clinton, as the person ultimately responsible for funding Rauf's visit to the Middle East (which cannot help but affect his fundraising efforts for the mosque) has a duty to the American people to get to the bottom of Rauf's refusal to condemn Hamas, his rhetoric in Arabic that contrasts with his English language rhetoric, and his association with anti-US groups.

Silence on the subject equals Mrs. Clinton's support for the Imam, who is enjoying a taxpayer funded trip (I wonder, by the way, if he is flying coach?). The Ground Zero Mosque is the most divisive issue in America today. If the Secretary of State is convinced she can dodge responsibility for funding him, she is sadly mistaken.

Hat tip: Clarice Feldman