A federal grand jury investigation into the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) involves possible support to the Hamas terrorist group.

A grand jury in Washington issued a subpoena in November for records obtained by the authors of Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America. CAIR is suing the authors, claiming their internal records were stolen after they were infiltrated by an intern who posed as a Muslim convert.

Industrious Politico reporter Josh Gerstein discovered the investigation's focus in an otherwise routine filing in the civil suit. More than 40 pages into the filing was a letter from a National Security Section attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington.

The letter's reference line mentioned the subpoena and a statute: 50 U.S.C 1701-1706. Gerstein looked it up and discovered "Those sections are part of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, a law under which President Clinton banned dealings with groups he determined to be disrupting the Middle East Peace Process."

Hamas is among those groups. Gerstein notes there's no indication whether the grand jury's focus is on Hamas or other designated terrorist groups. But the record is clear that the FBI suspects CAIR has worked in support of Hamas.

An official said as much last spring in explaining why the FBI no longer engages in "outreach" communication with CAIR.

Its case agent called CAIR a Hamas front during testimony at the terror-financing trial of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development. In that case, numerous court exhibits tied CAIR founders Omar Ahmed and Nihad Awad to a Hamas-support network in the U.S., including a telephone list of "Palestine Committee" members.

Gerstein again found a needle in a haystack. Last fall, he discovered that the judge in the Holy Land case quietly denied CAIR's request to be removed from a list of unindicted co-conspirators.

Whether this grand jury investigation leads to charges or not, it provides another example of the depth of evidence linking the self-anointed civil rights organization to intransigent terrorists who actively seek to thwart American peace efforts.