Congress Battles Over Funding Terrorists

The Build Back Better plan is still alive. However, Senator Joe Manchin remains a key vote and President Biden has yet to fully convince him to support this bill. Meanwhile, there is a widespread effort by conservatives to strengthen the Taylor Force Act, a federal law that prohibits funding for the Palestinian Authority until it stops funding terrorists. As we’ve told you, the Taylor Force Act was named after an American veteran — Taylor Force – who was murdered by a Palestinian jihadist while studying abroad in Israel through the Vanderbilt business program.

Senator Bill Hagerty (TN) joined Sekulow to discuss how this law could be strengthened:

"With respect to the Taylor Force Act . . . the fact is that Taylor was a veteran, but also a student at Vanderbilt business school, so it certainly rings close to home when we find out these martyr payments are being made by the Palestinian Authority. The original intent of the bill that was signed by President Trump was to stop U.S. humanitarian aid from going to the Palestinian Authority as long as they were going to these Pay to Slay programs. The problem with this is that money is fungible. They figured ways to get around this so what we want to do is make it considerably stronger. And what we are going to do is focus on the banking system. This provides additional authority to designate foreign banks who are involved in money laundering and forbid them from holding or using any type of corresponding accounts in the United States if they are involved with martyr payments to terrorists or if they knowingly provide financial services to Hamas. . . . So, this is going to be a much stronger and tighter way to address . . . using the financial system, cutting off the payment system to these guys, so they can no longer abuse this and continue to conduct this awful Pay to Slay program where they pay people who are murderers if they martyr themselves."

The Left is focusing their efforts on desperately trying to push President Biden’s Build Back Better plan to be passed through the Senate before Christmas. ACLJ Director of Government Affairs Thann Bennett explained the movement on this bill:

"We have had about 12 different versions of this bill and we’ve had about 10 or 15 different drop-dead deadlines; this Christmas deadline is just one of the most recent one of those. I would tell you two things that might seem to contradict each other. On the one hand, I don’t think they are going to be able to pass it before Christmas. But I would quickly follow up on that and say you should not assume that. Because I will tell you this, as soon as they can get 50 votes in the United States Senate, it doesn’t matter if they have written the bill or not . . . they will vote on it. So, if Chuck Schumer says that he’s trying to work with the President to get Senator Manchin on board before Christmas, we have to operate on that timeline. . . . There are really only two versions of this bill that we can go by right now, the one that passed the House, which is scored at 1.75 trillion or 1.85 trillion if you count the immigration provisions . . . or this one that . . . is a blank sheet of paper . . . this is in front of Senator Joe Manchin. Whatever he writes, that is what is going to be on the Senate floor eventually."

We are utilizing our resources at our office in Washington, D.C., to monitor this bill and provide you with updates. In the meantime, we have an ACLJ victory involving assisting a student after her professor graded her essay as a zero because it was about Jesus. ACLJ Senior Counsel Abby Southerland joined Sekulow to discuss this case:

"We were contacted by a student in Wyoming, she’s a college student at a public college there, and she had enrolled in an English literature class and had decided to write about the historical figure of Jesus, which was within the confines of the assignment given. However, shortly after submitting her first essay, she was given a zero on the essay because of the content of her essay which was about Jesus."

We are proud to report that we were able to arm the student with an informational legal memorandum that explained her rights as a student, and the faculty agreed to let her proceed with her essay about Jesus. Defending religious liberty is one of the core issues at the ACLJ. If you have a similar situation, we have a team ready to help. There is no issue that is too big or too small for us. At every step of the way, we are on it.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of the Build Back Better bill, the Taylor Force Act, and a recent ACLJ victory.