(José Niño, Headline USA) Democratic Virginia gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger once worked for a Saudi government–controlled school known for ties to extremist teachings and Hamas-linked figures, according to a report by Just The News.
Spanberger, a former CIA officer and congresswoman, taught English at the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in northern Virginia during the 2002–2003 school year, shortly after the 9/11 attacks.
The academy, fully funded and overseen by the Saudi royal government, had long been under scrutiny for using textbooks that preached hatred toward non-Muslims and Jews and for associations with radical Islamic figures.
When the position became public during her 2018 congressional campaign, Spanberger said she was “proud” and “not ashamed” of her background, calling the students she taught “normal kids.”
By the time Spanberger joined the ISA, the school was already linked to disturbing controversies. Hamas political chief Mousa Abu Marzook, later deported from the U.S., had sent his children there in the 1990s, according to a report by The Washington Post. The school’s comptroller, Ismail Selim Elbarasse, shared a bank account with Marzook and was later tied to the Justice Department’s Holy Land Foundation investigation for funneling money to Hamas, per a subsequent report by The Washington Post.
In 2002, the Washington Post reported that ISA textbooks taught that “the Day of Judgment can’t come until Jesus Christ returns to Earth, breaks the cross and converts everyone to Islam, and until Muslims start attacking Jews.”
One 11th-grade book said Jews would hide behind trees, which would cry out, “Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him.” The Post reported that Saudi officials later admitted that the school’s materials had contained “inflammatory material since at least the mid-1990s.”
The Post noted that ISA also lost its accreditation that same year after investigators questioned its funding and oversight. The school’s own website stated that it was “funded by and subject to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Earlier reports from The Post and CNN revealed that two recent ISA graduates were detained by Israeli authorities in 2001 over suspicions they planned a suicide attack. One pleaded guilty to passport fraud in the United States. A few years later, the school’s valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush.
The controversies led even Democrats like Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to call for a federal probe, warning in a 2005 press release that the academy’s “continued association with individuals linked to terror and the teaching of hateful ideology” demanded attention.
Spanberger maintains she took a temporary substitute job there while awaiting CIA security clearance and insists she had “nothing to hide.” USA Today reported that she verified the arrangement with CIA recruiters before accepting the position.
Her Republican critics were less forgiving. Then-Rep. Dave Brat, R-V.A., called the academy “Terror High,” arguing that its record was “openly anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian,” as the Post previously reported. GOP groups accused Spanberger of concealing the employment, noting it did not appear on early campaign materials.
Spanberger countered that she later served the CIA “running a large-scale program aimed at thwarting terrorist threats,” per a report by The Washington Times. She also enlisted ex-CIA officer John Sipher—later one of the signatories of the disputed Hunter Biden laptop letter—to defend her. Sipher said, “Associating Abigail with terrorism is laughable… The CIA trusted her with top-secret clearances. For Dave Bratt or anybody else to twist that and turn it against her and claim that Abigail aided terrorists? It’s dangerous and unpatriotic.”
Spanberger, for her part, has dismissed the controversy: “I’m proud of my background and my service… I have nothing to hide.”
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
