Obama Funder Raising Money for al-Qaeda Families in Yemen?

Obama Funder Raising Money for al-Qaeda Families in Yemen?
Kristinn Taylor

Jodie Evans, 2008 Obama bundler and co-founder of the leftist anti-American group Code Pink, is in Yemen this week campaigning against the United States’ efforts in fighting the war on terror. This is in keeping with Code Pink’s decade-long history of working with terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism against the United States.

While in Yemen, Evans is raising money for families of Yemenis being held at the terrorist detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and possibly the family of slain al Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki.

Code Pink sent their top leadership, including Evans, Susan ‘Medea’ Benjamin and former diplomat Col. Ann Wright (U.S .Army, Ret.) on this trip to the home of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula for meetings with the Yemeni government, the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Gerald M. Feierstein , Nasser al-Awlaki and other family members of U.S. drone strike targets as well as Guantanamo detainees’ families.

While Code Pink is an American 501(c)3 tax-exempt group, Evans is also appealing for donations from “international donors” through Evans’ Gmail address in support of the trip to Yemen.

Evans posted a photo on June 13 on Instagram and Twitter of the group’s meeting with Nasser al-Awlaki captioned, “Our @CODEPINK #yemen delegation with Anwar al-Awlaki’s father Nasser, “US killed my grandson, Why?”

Code Pink has apparently deleted from the Code Pink Web site any mention of the group’s meeting with Nasser al-Awlaki. The photo is all that remains to document the group’s meeting with the father of the spiritual leader of al Qaeda who was killed in Yemen on September 30, 2011 by a U.S. drone strike.

Al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old grandson Abdulrahman al-Awlaki was also killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen two weeks after his father Anwar was taken out. Nasser al-Awlaki denies his grandson had followed in Anwar’s al-Qaeda footsteps and just happened to be in the same al Qaeda hotspot in Yemen as his father because he missed his dad.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! broadcast  June 7, 2013, Nasser al-Awlaki vehemently denied Anwar al-Awlaki was involved with al Qaeda:

“But it was only allegations. For example, Mr. Obama in his speech claimed that Anwar was the foreign director of al-Qaeda operations in Yemen. This is a big lie. Al-Qaeda never claimed that Anwar is a member of their organization. They always called him a sheikh, Anwar al-Awlaki. They never claimed he is a member of their organization. They never said he had an office or any official standing in that organization. Even Anwar himself, he never claimed–he never said anything regarding that he is a member or not a member of al-Qaeda. So it is a complete lie.”

The drone strikes taking out the al-Awlaki father and son are controversial for some because both were American citizens by birth and were killed without judicial process as part of the war on terror.

Code Pink’s fundraising appeal reads:

CODEPINK is taking a delegation to Yemen, and we need your help raising money in order to make this trip possible. Your generosity will help us reach Yemen and provide the funding for necessary expenditures while we are there, such as assisting drone strike survivors with medical needs, and providing monetary support for the families of Guantanamo prisoners who have been cleared for release (but are still imprisoned).

 With little acknowledgment or even compensation by the U.S. government, civilians living under drones have faced severe physical and mental trauma. The delegation would like to provide help with their medical needs and we need your help in doing that.

 The delegation would also like to meet with some of the survivors of US drone strikes and Gantanamo (sic) families, but traveling to some of the remote areas will be difficult for security reasons. For both the safety of the family and the delegation, we have been advised to bring the families to the capitol (sic) so they can talk freely and openly about their experiences. This will also be a great opportunity to host a press conference and invite Yemeni decision-makers to listen directly to families who are most impacted. In order for this to happen, we will need to pay for their travel costs and stay. Your support to make this possible is greatly appreciated.

 Thank you!

* INTERNATIONAL donors may send their donations via paypal to our Cofounder Jodie Evans, at jodieevans@gmail.com.

Will any of the money raised end up supporting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula families? The answer it seems would be, yes, given how Code Pink describes who it will be supporting and who it is meeting with. Also, given Code Pink’s history of delivering humanitarian aid to Hamas and families of the Iraqi resistance in Fallujah (aka al Qaeda in Iraq), it wouldn’t be the first time the group directly or indirectly aided terrorists.

The appeal to international donors to bypass Code Pink’s regulated 501(c)3 fundraising by sending money to Evans’ PayPal account raises questions as to accountability and whether Evans will wittingly or unwittingly allow jihadists to fund al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Evans served as a co-host for Barack Obama’s breakthrough Hollywood fundraiser in the early days of his presidential campaign in February 2007. The event was co-hosted by Evan’s (now deceased) billionaire husband Max Palevsky and the DreamWorks trio of Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen. At the time, Evans had just returned from a trip to Cuba where she worked with the Castro government in a propaganda campaign against Guantanamo.  Evans went on to be tapped as a campaign contribution bundler for the Obama campaign. She also ended up donating tens of thousands of dollars to the Obama campaign and Victory fund. Evans also donated to Obama’s 2012 reelection bid.

Evans is better known in Democratic party circles for managing California Governor Jerry Brown’s 1992 presidential campaign.

Evans has met with President Obama and visited the White House several times. Code Pink has acted as a messenger between terrorist groups, including Hamas and the Taliban, and Obama.

Medea Benjamin recently garnered worldwide attention when she confronted Obama during a speech on drones and Guantanamo.  Obama allowed Benjamin to repeatedly interrupt him, even saying that hers was a “voice worth paying attention to.”

That kind of presidential juice goes a long way overseas–especially when Obama and Code Pink are basically on the same page. Both opposed the war in Iraq; both support the U.S. withdrawal before victory from Afghanistan; both want to close Guantanamo; both are hostile to Israel; both work with the Muslim Brotherhood and both ignored Iran’s Green Revolution while both supported the Arab Spring uprisings against the governments of U.S. allies in the war on terror, Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi.

Code Pink plays what is known by progressives as the inside/outside game–acting as outside agitators while at the same time coordinating the agitation from the inside. In addition to fundraising for Obama, Evans and Benjamin serve alongside several high-ranking Democrat party Congressmen on the advisory board for the Progressive Democrats of America.

Code Pink has worked to undermine U.S. allies in Israel, Free Iraq, Bahrain, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Libya while working with U.S. enemies in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Cuba, Iran, the Palestinian territories, Venezuela and elsewhere.

Evans reports Ambassador Feierstein met with Code Pink for over two hours, delaying a scheduled luncheon as the meeting went over the one hour allotted for it. Evans claims the ambassador agreed to three requests:

“The meeting continued for over two hours and the sounds of the attendees coming for lunch began to grow louder. The guests were waiting patiently to be seated.  As we wrapped up our meeting, we secured three promises with the Ambassador.  An answer about the policy around drones strikes in Yemen, so Bob can report about it.  A meeting with the family members of Guantanamo prisoners, and a meeting with those working on reintegration and rehabilitation for members of Al-Qaeda.  Right before leaving, I asked one quick question to the Ambassador, “What were your thoughts on Dirty Wars?”, I asked.  He looked back, blank faced and then over to his information officer, who says. “Jeremy Scahill”.. “Ah, I won’t watch anything Jeremy did, he is too ideological.” responds the Ambassador.  As they begin to show us out the door,  I suggested to the Ambassador that he consider watching it, since Yemen has a big role in the film.  His information officer agrees to do a screening, if I get him a DVD.”

Being an Obama bundler has its privileges–even as one works with terrorists and state sponsors of terrorism against the United States.

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