APPELLATE RULES KAUFMAN A JOURNALIST AND RULES THAT CASE HAS NO MERIT TO CONTINUE

(Dallas, TX) The lawsuit and restraining order that were filed against the Chairman of Americans Against Hate (AAH) Joe Kaufman by seven Dallas-area Muslim organizations, in October 2007, were thrown out this past week by the State of Texas Court of Appeals, Second District of Texas Fort Worth. 

The seven plaintiffs included the Muslim American Society (MAS), which the U.S. government has called a front for the extremist Muslim Brotherhood, and three Islamic centers owned by theNorth American Islamic Trust (NAIT), an organization that was named a co-conspirator in the 2007/2008 Holy Land Foundation (HLF) Hamas financing trial. 

The groups claimed in the lawsuit that Kaufman had written an article for FrontPage Magazine that libeled them, yet not one of the groups was actually named in the article. It was about the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and its connection to the financing of terrorism overseas. Kaufman, in October 2007, had flown to Texas to lead a demonstration outside an ICNA-sponsored event to expose this information to the public. 

Regarding the restraining order or “temporary injunction,” the groups admitted under oath that neither Kaufman nor his group had ever threatened them in any way, shape or form. Indeed, with respect to this case, it was Kaufman and his organization that received a threat, before Kaufman’s arrival in Texas. 

The case was placed in the Appellate, after the presiding judge refused to rule on whether or not Kaufman was a “media defendant” and refused to rule on the case (“summary judgment”) prior to it going to trial. 

The Appellate dealt with both issues, stating that Kaufman was a “media defendant” and deserved all the rights provided to print journalists. And the Appellate moved to dismiss the case, on the grounds that the article written by Kaufman was not about and did not mention any of the plaintiffs or “appellees.” The Appellate basically agreed with everything that Kaufman and his attorneys were arguing and shot down the arguments from the losing side. 

One of the more embarrassing arguments from the other side was that Joe Kaufman ran FrontPage Magazine. FrontPage, in reality, is run by the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and Kaufman is a columnist for it. Both Kaufman and David Horowitz wrote and filed affidavits attesting to this. The plaintiffs worked hard to have these affidavits thrown out. 

From the start of the case, Kaufman has called the lawsuit “entirely frivolous” and stated that it was only brought to harm Kaufman financially and to stop him from writing about the terrorism ties of the plaintiffs’ friends. In the end, the case was an important victory for Freedom of Speech.