Trump offers to buy Park51 site to block Islamic center

As national controversy over the proposed Park51 Islamic community center intensified, Trump sent a letter to investor Hisham Elzanaty offering to purchase the lower Manhattan site for 25 percent more than he paid, on the condition that the Muslim-backed project abandon plans to build near Ground Zero. Trump framed the unsolicited $6 million offer as a bid to 'end the furor,' but it would have stripped Muslim organizers of property rights they had already secured, effectively using his fortune to dictate where they could worship. Park51's backers publicly rejected the gambit, calling it an infringement on religious freedom and a capitulation to anti-Muslim pressure groups.