American Democracy Project is a 527 group headed by Bernie Friedman and based in Broward County, Florida.
ADP was founded during the 2004 Senate election "to investigate the reasons that the University of South Florida became known as 'Jihad University' in the 1990s during the tenure of then-USF President Betty Castor," then a candidate for the Democratic nomination. Its investigations have centered around Castor's response to USF professors Sami Al-Arian and Ramadan Abdullah Shallah in the mid-1990s. Al-Arian later pled guilty to conspiracy to contribute services to or for the benefit of the Palestine Islamic Jihad, a Specially Designated Terrorist organization, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison.
Friedman, a long-time friend of Castor's rival for the Democratic nomination, U.S. Rep. Peter Deutsch, has been accused of using the ADP as a "front group" to stage attacks on Castor on behalf of the Deutsch campaign. Deutsch has denied this accusation.
ADP launched a website in July, castortruth.com, outlining several documents and details that were uncovered after ADP filed their request for documents in Betty Castor's possession.
On the same day, Castor's campaign launched a second website, castorfacts.com, containing documents supporting Castor's claim that she did everything possible to deal appropriately with Al-Arian, while simultaneously debunking Friedman and one of castortruth.com's contributors, John Loftus. Also, castorfacts.com pointed out that Al-Arian had a relationship with George W. Bush during the 2000 presidential campaign, and for some time leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks: the point was to "show that Republicans can't exploit this issue" in the general election.
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