A federal judge in Texas ordered the commencement of the discovery phase of a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of knowingly providing funds to benefit Palestinian terrorist attacks.
America First Legal (AFL) filed the lawsuit on behalf of U.S. Rep. Ronny Jackson (R–TX) and Stuart and Robbi Force, parents of West Point graduate Taylor Force—who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Tel Aviv and is the impetus for the Taylor Force Act.
The lawsuit claims President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken resumed payments to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which Former President Donald Trump ended in order to comply with the Taylor Force Act.
Signed into law in 2017, the Taylor Force Act is a federal law prohibiting the U.S. government from providing the Palestinian Authority with American taxpayer funds until they take credible steps to end acts of violence, stop payments for acts of terrorism, publicly condemn the acts of violence, and revoke the laws requiring payments to known terrorists.
According to the lawsuit, the Biden administration has sent nearly half a billion in taxpayer dollars to the PA, despite admitting that the PA still operates its “Pay to Slay” program.
The “Pay to Slay” program encourages terrorist attacks against persons living in and visiting Israel. Under the program, the PA rewards terrorists and their families with increased rewards in proportion to the casualties inflicted. Furthermore, terrorists who spend more than five years in prison are paid a guaranteed salary by the PA for the rest of their lives.
With the recent news of thousands of Israelis injured and murdered and at least 14 Americans killed by Palestinian terrorists, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas stated that AFL’s “recent production of records shows that the Government knew its ESF funding in the West Bank and Gaza was benefitting Palestinian terrorists, thereby ‘increasing the risk of terrorist attacks against the Plaintiffs and others similarly situated.’”
“These reasons, in concert with Hamas’s recent attack on Israel that killed fourteen Americans and resulted in others being held hostage, provide a sufficient basis for Plaintiffs’ request. Accordingly, the Motion is GRANTED,” concluded the order.
AFL Legal Senior Counselor and Director of Oversight and Investigations Reed D. Rubinstein released a statement on the matter:
To defend our lawsuit, the Defendants claimed that Congress and the Supreme Court have it all wrong – money is not fungible, and material support for terror groups and regimes is not the feedstock for atrocities. But State Department documents show otherwise, and that the Biden Administration clearly knew U.S. dollars would benefit Hamas and subsidize terrorism. This Court Order opens the door to answers and accountability.
“President Biden knew that illegally providing funds to the Palestinian Authority would go directly to funding Iran-backed terrorism against Israel,” Jackson told Texas Scorecard. “I sued the Biden Administration for breaking the law and knowingly funding Palestinian terror. On top of sending over the usual hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority, President Biden released $6 billion in Iranian assets last month which has no doubt emboldened the Palestinian Authority, Iran, and Hamas.”
“President Biden’s actions have directly led to the death of Americans and Israelis by providing funds that no doubt strengthened Hamas and Palestinian terrorists. Taxpayer dollars should never contribute toward terrorism and death, and thanks to America Fist Legal, we will now be able to pull the curtain back on Biden illegally funding terrorism,” he added.
