The Investigative Project has new details on the FBI’s decision to sever its ties to the Hamas-linked radical Islamic front group CAIR: FBI Explains Its CAIR Cut Off.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) is not “an appropriate liaison partner” for the FBI because of evidence linking the organization and its founders to Hamas, an FBI assistant director said in a letter to a U.S. Senator.

“In light of that evidence, the FBI suspended all formal contacts between CAIR and the FBI,” Richard C. Powers, an assistant director in the FBI’s office of Congressional Affairs, wrote in a letter to Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ).

Today, the FBI is unsure whether the relationship between CAIR and Hamas ever was severed, Powers wrote.

In February, Kyl was joined by fellow senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) in writing FBI Director Robert Mueller to praise the FBI’s policy toward CAIR. The senators said they believed it “should be government-wide policy,” and asked whether there were exceptions to it and whether it applied to field offices as well as FBI headquarters.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism was the first to report on the FBI’s decision to break communication with CAIR. That story cited an Oct. 8, 2008 letter from the head of the FBI’s Oklahoma City field office, who canceled a meeting of local Muslim community groups because of CAIR’s involvement.

“[I]f CAIR wishes to pursue an outreach relationship with the FBI, certain issues must be addressed to the satisfaction of the FBI. Unfortunately, these issues cannot be addressed at the local level and must be addressed by the CAIR National Office in Washington, D.C.,” the letter said.

While this is good news, it needs to be asked why it took the FBI so long to recognize that the Council on American Islamic Relations was up to no good? Their agenda was never exactly a secret — defending terrorists, making excuses for Hamas and Hezbollah, and harassing critics (including yours truly) with bogus “hate crime” reports. For years, the FBI acted like an obedient lap dog for this group, and that’s a disgrace.