Elections certainly have circumstances. On Monday we were informed that President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team has appointed Reema Dodin, a Democratic party activist of “Palestinian” descent, as Deputy Chief of Staff for the White House Office of Legislative Affairs.
Dodin is affiliated with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which she joined as a student at Berkeley, where she was also a member of the Muslim Student Association. She also organized anti-Israel rallies at the University of California at Berkeley as a student.
Terror expert Steve Emerson has described Dodin as “acting as an agent of influence for the [Muslim] Brotherhood’s operations inside America.” She has made statements justifying suicide bombers against Israel.
The Anti-Defamation League has criticized CAIR, saying its position as the “go to American-Muslim civil rights organization” is “undermined by its anti-Israel agenda,” dating back to its founding by leaders of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), a Hamas affiliated anti-Semitic propaganda organization.” The ADL also accused the group of hypocrisy in its condemnation of Hezbollah, noting that CAIR “for many years… refused to unequivocally condemn Palestinian terror organizations and Hezbollah by name” and that CAIR began to do so “only when the terrorist organization stopped focusing solely on Israel and began engaging in military operations against Sunni Muslim fighters in Syria and Iraq.” The ADL has also called on CAIR to “denounce anti-Semitism at rallies in the US.”
She was a prominent supporter of a lawsuit brought by the Muslim Advocates organization against the Justice Dept. over the FBI’s surveillance operations in US mosques. The group’s 2009 lawsuit sought the “full disclosure of the standards and procedures utilized by FBI agents” for conducting surveillance operations on civic or religious organizations in connection to an ongoing criminal investigation.
The Office of Legislative Affairs is responsible for advancing the President’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill. Every day, the Legislative Affairs team is working with Senators, Representatives, and their staffs to promote the President’s priorities. The Office of Legislative Affairs officials notify Senators and Representatives about the administration’s initiatives, assisting with research on legislation and floor activity, and staffing legislative events.
Reema Dodin has served most recently as a volunteer on the Biden campaign, and before that worked for Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) as the director of his research center, and as an assistant on his judicial subcommittee on human rights and the law.
Dodin, who has been described as a brilliant lawyer, graduated from the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She co-authored a book on the House and Senate at the Brookings Institution.
Dodin is a fellow at the Truman National Security Project, a fellow of the New Leaders Council, a graduate of the Aspen Institute Socrates Program, a former member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Jenkins Hill Society.
H/T Elder of Ziyon.
