Hobby Lobby chief: It’s ‘possible that we have illicit’ artifacts

The organization is under investigation for allegedly acquiring tablets from Iraq.

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The Daily Beast reported that the Green family has been under investigation since 2011, when customs agents seized around 300 clay tablets that were headed to Hobby Lobby’s corporate headquarters.

The artifacts’ ultimate destination is supposed to be the Greens’ Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. The museum is set to open in 2017.

“If the investigation ends with a decision to prosecute, on either criminal or civil charges, the Greens may be forced to forfeit the tablets to the government,” according to The Daily Beast.

The museum’s president, Cary Summers, told the site, “There was a shipment and it had improper paperwork—incomplete paperwork that was attached to it.” Summers seemed to think it was nothing more than red tape. “Sometimes this stuff just sits, and nobody does anything with it.”

However, Daily Beast reporters Candida Moss and Joel Baden said the customs form labeling the tablets as “hand-crafted clay tiles” worth around $300 “obscures their identification as the cultural heritage of Iraq” and the investigation is more than a little paperwork:

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