Virginia AG ratchets up investigation into American Muslims for Palestine

The petition, if successful, could implicate AMP in terrorism financing violations and shine a light on American anti-Israel groups’ close ties to foreign extremists and illicit actors.

By Adam Kredo, The Washington Free Beacon

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R.) filed a petition to compel American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) to turn over documents related to the leading anti-Israel group’s alleged terror financing.

Though a judge ordered AMP to disclose its funding channels last year, AMP has “refused to comply,” Miyares’s office said.

If a Richmond, Va., judge approves Miyares’s petition to enforce, AMP would be compelled to “immediately” comply with Miyares’s investigation into allegations that the group provides material support to overseas terrorist organizations.

A city circuit court judge ordered AMP, a nonprofit group that helped drive anti-Semitic protests against Israel in the wake of Oct. 7, to turn over financial records to Miyares in a July 2024 decision.

Shortly thereafter, AMP filed an unsuccessful petition to limit the probe. It has since stonewalled the investigation, Miyares’s office said in a Tuesday press release.

The petition, if successful, could implicate AMP in terrorism financing violations and shine a light on American anti-Israel groups’ close ties to foreign extremists and illicit actors.

Miyares launched the probe after AMP failed to properly file basic tax forms permitting it to solicit donations in Virginia for seven years.

Miyares used that failure as legal justification to access AMP’s donor records.

AMP attempted to quash the probe, claiming Miyares was on an Islamophobic witch hunt, but a district judge rejected that argument last year, saying the attorney general is within his right to perform oversight on AMP’s finances.

The original request, known as a civil investigative demand (CID), centered on “AMP’s noncompliance with the state’s charitable solicitation law and an investigation into allegations that the organization may have used raised funds for impermissible purposes, such as benefiting or providing support to terrorist organizations,” according to the attorney general office’s statement.

“Despite the court having rejected AMP’s previous lawsuit that sought to evade the Attorney General’s investigation, AMP has refused to comply with the CID requiring the Attorney General to bring this action to ensure accountability,” the office said.

Miyares’s probe covers many years’ worth of AMP funding documents, including its donors and transaction records.

It 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.

AMP did not immediately respond to a request for comment.