In 2014, then-college student Hoda Muthana lied to her parents about going on a school trip and ran away to join the ISIS terrorist group in Syria. Now, after spending years with a terrorist group that had attacked America, she’s pleading to come back home and says “therapy” should be her punishment. This was who CBS foreign correspondent Holly Williams decided to sympathize with on Wednesday’s CBS Evening News.
Williams appeared to side with Muthana after President Trump tweeted “that he'd instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the country,” and “[t]he State Department said Muthana had no right to return because she, quote, ‘is not a U.S. citizen.’”
“But Muthana's family say she is an American citizen. They've given us a copy of what they claim is her birth certificate, showing she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1994, and they say she held a U.S. passport,” Williams explained. She then unironically hyped a tweet Muthana posted bragging about throwing her passport into a “bonfire”, while her Twitter handle was “Umm Jihad”. You can’t make this stuff up.
CBS spoke with the family’s lawyer, Hassan Shibly:
HASSAN SHIBLY: At the end of the day, she's a U.S. Citizen, and whether Americans make crimes or not, that doesn't deprive them of their citizenship.
WILLIAMS: If she's been stripped of U.S. Citizenship, it's apparently news to her family.
SHIBLY: She's literally trying to turn herself into the U.S. government to be held accountable to our laws, to pay any debts she may have for society.
Williams failed to disclose that Shibly actually worked for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) a group with known ties to the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.
As the National Review wrote about CAIR in 2014:
It is connected to Hamas: Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. and many other governments, indirectly created CAIR and the two groups remain tight. Examples: In 1994, CAIR head Nihad Awad publicly declared his support for Hamas; the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a Hamas front group, contributed $5,000 to CAIR; in turn, CAIR exploited the 9/11 attacks to raise money for HLF; and, this past August, demonstrators at a CAIR-sponsored rally in Florida proclaimed “We are Hamas!”
Interestingly, Williams herself has a long history of seemingly sympathizing with Hamas as well. When the U.S. moved its Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2018, she noted: “These protests also mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel which the Palestinians call a catastrophe.” Williams often blames the U.S. and Israel when Hamas launches attacks against the border and Israeli civilians.
“The family lawyer told us today that they will challenge the U.S. government in court asserting that Hoda Muthana is an American citizen and has the right to go home, where she would almost certainly face prosecution,” Williams concluded.
She omitted that the debate around her citizenship stemmed from the fact that her father was once a diplomat for Yemen, and as such, would not be eligible for citizenship. There were questions regarding the timing of her birth and him leaving that post.
Once again, Williams also failed to report what Muthana thought was just punishment for her terrorist actions. In an interview with ABC News this week, she suggested: “Maybe therapy lessons. Maybe a process that will ensure us we will never do this again. I am definitely planning, definitely wanting people to not make the same decision that I’ve made.”
That is who Williams has seemingly decided to feel sorry for.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CBS Evening News
February 20, 2019
6:40:00 p.m. EasternJEFF GLOR: The ISIS bride that we profiled last night apparently will not return to the United States. Hoda Muthana ran away to join ISIS in Syria several years ago, but now wants to come home. Holly Williams has late news on this.
[Cuts to video]
HOLLY WILLIAMS: President Trump tweeted this afternoon that he'd instructed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the country. The State Department said Muthana had no right to return because she, quote, "is not a U.S. Citizen." But Muthana's family say she is an American citizen. They've given us a copy of what they claim is her birth certificate, showing she was born in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 1994, and they say she held a U.S. passport. Muthana even seems to have tweeted a photograph of it back in 2014, claiming she was going to burn it. Hassan Shibly is the family's lawyer:
HASSAN SHIBLY: At the end of the day, she's a U.S. Citizen, and whether Americans make crimes or not, that doesn't deprive them of their citizenship.
WILLIAMS: If she's been stripped of U.S. Citizenship, it's apparently news to her family.
SHIBLY: She's literally trying to turn herself into the U.S. government to be held accountable to our laws, to pay any debts she may have for society.
WILLIAMS: Hoda Muthana was studying business at the University of Alabama in 2014 when she told her family she was going on a school trip. Instead, flying to the Middle East and crossing into ISIS territory in Syria. She's now in a refugee camp with many other ISIS wives and children and, apparently, remorseful.
HODA MUTHANA: I know I’ve ruined my future and my son’s future and I deeply, deeply regret it.
WILLIAMS: If the U.S. Government won't recognize her as a citizen, she may be there for some time.
[Cuts back to live]
The family lawyer told us today that they will challenge the U.S. government in court asserting that Hoda Muthana is an American citizen and has the right to go home, where she would almost certainly face prosecution. Jeff.
GLOR: Holly Williams, thank you very much.
