The Biden administration removed information about the Palestinian Authority’s incitement to terror from a mandatory compliance report submitted to Congress in July, a move that may have been illegal according to a legal watchdog group, Washington Free Beacon reported.

The America First Legal Foundation (AFLF) sent a letter to the State Department Inspector General last week requesting that it investigate the Biden administration’s omission of references to the PA’s call for terror and violence as it simultaneously committed to provide it with millions of dollars in US aid.

The references to the PA’s incitement to terror were included in the outgoing Trump administration’s October 2020 version of the report but were subsequently removed by the Biden administration.

The AFLF also submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the State Department for all internal records on the decision to omit the information, including the names of any Biden administration officials who had a part in the decision.

The Biden administration “unlawfully [concealed] multiple material derogatory facts regarding the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing economic, political, and ideological support for terrorism; economic warfare against Israel; and opposition to regional peace,” Reed Rubinstein, AFLF’s senior counselor, wrote to acting State Department Inspector General Diana Shaw.

“It seems these derogatory facts were deleted, expunged, and concealed not because circumstances on the ground had changed, but rather because officials in the Department’s Bureau of Near East Affairs and in the Biden White House decided to cover them up, at least in part to facilitate the planned transfer of hundreds of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to the Palestinian Authority in potential violation of U.S. law.”

The AFLF letter emphasized that if the information was removed in order to hide the PA’s wrongdoings from Congress, it may be a violation of US law and the State Department must “immediately open an investigation” into any decision by officials “to conceal and cover up material derogatory facts regarding the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority from the Congress.”

“We are concerned by attempts to conceal material facts regarding the PLO’s support for terrorism, commitment to the destruction of the State of Israel and the concomitant murder and/or expulsion of the Jews now resident there, and ongoing efforts to block peace treaties between Israel and the Arab states from Congress,” the FOIA request states, according to a copy obtained by the Free Beacon.

The State Department also removed details of incitement to terror in Palestinian schools and media outlets.

(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)