A Virginia-based surgeon and a senior board member of CAIR’s Washington Trust Foundation (the entity that controls CAIR’s extensive real estate assets), over the years Omeish has been embroiled in controversies involving extremist rhetoric, affiliations with Islamist organizations, and suspicious financial dealings. In 2007, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine appointed Omeish to the Virginia Commission on Immigration. However, he was forced to resign just a month later when video footage surfaced of him praising “the jihad way” as the means to “liberate your land.” Omeish previously served as President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), an organization founded by individuals linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Additionally, as a board member of Dar Al-Hijrah, a mosque in Falls Church, Virginia, Omeish played a role in hiring Anwar al-Awlaki as an imam. Al-Awlaki later became a leading figure in Al-Qaeda and was linked to multiple terrorist plots. In 2017, Libya’s Defense and National Security Committee listed Omeish’s name as the 29th among 75 individuals designated as terrorists, identifying him as an “international member of the Muslim Brotherhood.” In 2023, just nine days after the Hamas October 7 terrorist attack that took the lives of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians, Omeish posted a poem in Arabic on Facebook expressing hope that “Jihad and the Mujahideen” would be victorious. Despite scrutiny, Omeish remains influential within CAIR and broader Islamist advocacy networks.