Duggar Family Friend Under FBI Investigation In New Scandal

The scandal-plagued Duggar family is linked to Hobby Lobby Stores founder, David Green, who is under FBI investigation for customs violations, falsifying documents, and the unauthorized export of antiquities.

In an exclusive report released today, David Green has been under FBI investigation since 2011 “for the illicit importation of cultural heritage from Iraq.” The year 2011 is the year U.S. troops left Iraq and insurgents moved in, who often sold antiquities for funding and for providing operating capital to ISIS.

The first shipment investigated was destined for a Hobby Lobby warehouse and was illegally shipped from Israel via FedEx. It contained hundreds of priceless, ancient cuneiform tablets. The shipment was fraudulently labeled “hand-crafted clay tiles” with a declared value of about $300.

The Green family owns the largest private collection of Biblical manuscripts in the world, all held in a Hobby Lobby temperature-controlled warehouse. The family has been accused more than once of owning pieces of suspicious origin in the 44,000-piece collection, including fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Parts of the vast holdings have been exhibited around the world in such prestigious venues as the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem and at the Vatican.

It is believed that the ultimate destination of the treasures now under investigation was to be the Green family’s new museum in the nation’s capital. David Green provided $140 in funding to build the Bible Museum in Washington D.C., which is slated to open in 2017. The museum is located along museum alley, near the National Mall. Not by coincidence, Washington D.C. is where the Duggar family wants to build its anti-abortion/contraception museum under the umbrella organization Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar founded in 2013, Life United. The stated goal of Life United is “to end abortion in America.”

The Duggar family’s ties to the Green family go back many years and revolve around mutually held beliefs regarding birth control and abortion, and their mutual, significant support over the years of now ousted religious leader, Bill Gothard, and his organizations.

The Greens have donated millions of dollars of property to Gothard organizations, including the $600,000 facility in Little Rock Arkansas where the Duggar family’s eldest son, Josh Duggar, was sent for four months in 2003, after he sexually abused five minor children – including four of his own sisters. The program Josh attended was named “Integrity Construction Institute,” and consisted of doing renovations on the 529,717-square-foot building, which was formerly used by the Veterans Administration until Green purchased it for Gothard in 2000.

A multi-million dollar property donation by Green was the 2,250-acre campus of Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas. Green donated the campus in 2001 and it now operates as the Air Land Emergency Resource Team (ALERT) Academy, under the auspices of the Gothard-founded Institute of Basic Life Principles (IBLP). The Duggar family has often attended events at ALERT and at least two Duggar sons completed paramilitary training there. All of the Duggar’s oldest daughters have attended seminars sponsored by IBLP and some have been featured speakers at IBLP events. Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar were featured speakers at an ALERT event this month.

David Green’s son Steve (who is now president of Hobby Lobby) has also been a speaker at ALERT events.

“Steve Green, Hobby Lobby’s president, has spoken alongside Gothard at an ATI conference (attended by the Duggars) at the Big Sandy center. Last year [2012], he was a keynote speaker at a businessmen’s seminar held at Gothard’s headquarters in Oak Brook, IL … Steve Green is a featured speaker for Gothard’s Embassy Institute.”

“And David Green has allowed Gothard to speak to employees and distribute IBLP materials at a Hobby Lobby store near Oak Brook, IL.”

This latest scandal is just one more in the convoluted relationships of the Duggar family and its long ties to Bill Gothard, his organizations and his homeschool program the Duggars have used to teach all of their 19 children.

Scroll down to leave your comments and opinions.

[Image via Dang Apricot / Wikipedia Commons licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0]