The Trump Justice Department Is Right to Investigate Columbia’s Antisemitic Campus Agitation

Videos show that ‘protesters’ have used violence in their open support of an enemy — Hamas.

T he New York Times’ reporting about unrest at the Justice Department over the Trump administration’s investigation of campus agitation at Columbia exemplifies perfectly how media bias distorts the public’s grasp of legal controversies.

Devlin Barrett, the paper’s longtime reporter on federal law enforcement, offers the left’s perspective on civil rights enforcement as if it were presumptively valid when, in fact, it is highly controversial. Of the ensuing clash between “career prosecutors” and Trump appointees at Main Justice, he writes:

[It] highlights the tensions roiling the department as administration officials seek to enact President Trump’s agenda. That bid includes redirecting the civil rights division away from its traditional approach of protecting the rights of minority groups to a new mission of fulfilling a campaign promise to crack down on student protesters amid accusations of rampant antisemitism on college campuses. [Emphasis added.]

Where to begin? Well, for starters, the supposedly “traditional” civil rights approach of “protecting the rights of minority groups” reflects the progressive theory that civil rights enforcement should benefit only groups that the left portrays as systemically “oppressed” — particularly blacks and non-Americans. In point of fact, however, the civil rights laws are written in a neutral way to protect all people, and especially Americans, in the enjoyment of their constitutional and other federal rights.

Part of President Trump’s undeniable appeal, not only to his base supporters but to many Americans who are not Trump enthusiasts, is his rejection of the premise that civil rights enforcement is the purview of the Democratic base, a weapon to be wielded against police departments and other supposed pillars of institutional racism but never invoked in favor of groups disfavored by the left — such as Christians, Jewish supporters of Israel, and ordinary people who dissent from progressive indoctrination in the schools and two-tiered administration of justice. If Trump is “redirecting the civil rights division away from its traditional approach,” then that’s actual progress, even if it enrages progressives.

The Times bewails the “exodus” of “career prosecutors” from the civil rights division. Most of us won’t shed a tear. The civil rights division has been a partisan politicized travesty, and that ethos won’t change absent a personnel overhaul.

Second, we don’t just have “accusations” of rampant antisemitism. We’ve had actual rampant antisemitism that is undeniable in any intellectually honest way. Several administrators of top American universities have admitted –often too late and too grudgingly — to failing Jewish students. The Trump DOJ is not cracking down on mere protest. It seeks to ensure evenhanded enforcement of the civil rights laws. It seeks to end the decades-long practice of the civil rights division, particularly in Democratic administrations, turning a blind eye to violence instigated by radical left-wing protesters, even as it fiercely cracked down on right-wing protesters, whose violence, while condemnable, was significantly less lethal and extensive (in time and space) than the left’s.

To be sure, antisemitism, though noxious and always worthy of rebuke, is not illegal. No form of hatred is. If the Justice Department is targeting antisemitism rather than criminal activity spawned by antisemitism, it is in constitutionally treacherous territory. Still, here are two things the Times can’t or won’t grasp. Antisemitism inexorably leads to lawlessness, so federal investigations are appropriate; no one in his right mind would prohibit DOJ from investigating neo-Nazis on the rationalization that they hadn’t yet acted on their vile ideas. And antisemitism would be a constitutionally valid basis to exclude aliens from entering the United States. It is therefore a righteous basis for scrutinizing whether there are grounds to expel aliens — even lawful permanent resident aliens — from the United States.

With the Times in the forefront, the media-Democratic complex has strived to cast the campus agitation as mere “protest” against the Israeli government and its combat operations following the October 7 atrocities. To the contrary, the agitation has been unabashedly in support of Hamas, the jihadist military enemy of both Israel and the United States that spearheaded the October 7 attacks.

Lest we forget, as the Times no doubt desires us to forget, 43 Americans were killed on October 7 and during its aftermath (among the 1,200 killed — leaving aside the maimed, raped, and kidnapped). Israel, with American support, has been directly fighting Hamas since that date (and long before). Hamas has been a designated terrorist organization under American law since the designation process was enacted in the mid-Nineties. That means it is a serious felony to provide Hamas with material support. It is not only perfectly appropriate for the Justice Department to investigate whether “protests” that align with Hamas’s operations and objective to eradicate Israel are coordinated with agents of Hamas or result in material support. It would be utterly irresponsible not to investigate — and it was utterly irresponsible for the Biden Justice Department to refrain from investigating on the false premise that to do so would run afoul of the Constitution.

I put the word protests in mock quotes because it is incontestable that far more than political dissent is at issue here. Eight paragraphs into his report, after Barrett has several times described the activities as “protests” that have so disturbed “career prosecutors,” he grudgingly acknowledges:

The investigation began shortly after masked protesters barged into Milbank Hall, a building at the Columbia-affiliated Barnard College, on Feb. 26 to demonstrate against the expulsion of students who had been accused of disrupting a “History of Modern Israel” class. Video shows students pushing past a security guard and occupying a hallway. School officials said at the time that the guard was assaulted and taken to the hospital for minor injuries.

This is violent lawlessness. The assailants included many non-Americans who were not Columbia students (in addition to many who were). The Justice and Homeland Security Departments absolutely should have been investigating to determine whether civil rights, anti-terrorism, and other potential violations of federal criminal law were committed, and whether the activities formed a basis to withdraw visas and expel aliens.

I would also note that the Times chooses to begin its Columbia story in February, as if President Trump’s administration is the culprit and there is no relevant history prior to his return to office. Conveniently omitted is the violent uprising in the spring of 2024, including the occupation of Hamilton Hall and the lawless encampments, both of which had to be ended by New York City police, with dozens of arrests (most of which the elected progressive Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg, declined to prosecute).

In its classically biased coverage, when the issue is left-wing “protests,” the Times takes the incoherent position that, before investigating, the government must be able to prove that a crime was committed. By contrast, when the issue is January 6 Capitol rioters (it’s verboten to label them “protesters”), no overbearing prosecutorial tactic is ever too much and the public should simply understand that the Justice Department must methodically build cases until they are ripe for indictment — however many years that may take, and however many tens of thousands in legal fees the targets must expend in their defense.

Hence, we’re told that a top Trump DOJ official, Emil Bove III, got pushback from experienced “investigators” when he directed them to obtain a “membership list” of a pro-Hamas group, Columbia University Apartheid Divest. To repeat what I’ve previously related about CUAD (in connection with the Trump administration’s effort to deport former a Columbia student and campus agitator):

As the New York Times reports, CUAD expressly backs “armed resistance” by Hamas and recently rescinded an apology it had offered after one of its members said Columbia should be “grateful that I’m not just going out and murdering Zionists.” The group promotes the radical leftist claim that the United States and Canada are oppressor regimes that are “occupying” “Turtle Island,” having seized it from indigenous peoples. CUAD has also promoted a “Resistance 101” panel that featured a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — a designated foreign terrorist organization — who proceeded to laud his “friends and brothers” from Hamas and yet another foreign terrorist organization, Palestinian Islamic Jihad. (Another panelist at the event: “There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas. . . . These are the people that are on the front lines defending Palestine.”)

Nevertheless, the Times now informs us that these DOJ civil rights investigators were deeply concerned that “scrutinizing people for their membership seemed like a possible violation of their First Amendment rights” (emphasis added). The Times has to fudge here because the proposition is absurd. The First Amendment is violated if people are charged based solely on protected speech; the First Amendment is not insulation from being investigated. And constitutionally protected speech is routinely and unremarkably introduced as evidence in criminal trials — as long as the person is charged with a crime, his statements can be relevant evidence of actions, intent, and motive. The government is not supposed to investigate solely on the basis of constitutionally protected activity, but there is nothing improper about investigating a group reasonably suspected of supporting a designated terrorist organization.

The Times says Bove wanted a CUAD membership list so he could share it with immigration agents. This is said to have disturbed veteran civil rights division prosecutors, who “came to fear that the criminal investigation was a pretext to facilitate an intimidation and deportation campaign by the Trump administration against student protesters.” But immigration agents work with the FBI and other federal law enforcement counterparts all the time. There is nothing inappropriate or necessarily pretextual about using the fruits of criminal investigations for related enforcement purposes. If the investigation yielded evidence to deport aliens, that’s not “intimidation”; it’s law enforcement, a legitimate objective of which is to discourage illegal activity by publicly punishing instances of it.

In the Obama and Biden administrations, moreover, the civil rights division often pretextually opened investigations to pressure state prosecutors to bring indictments in racially charged cases in which DOJ’s jurisdiction was dubious. It similarly opened investigations to pressure municipalities and their police departments to sign consent decrees, which induced them to conform to progressive policing “reforms.” In waving its pom-poms, the Times somehow managed to suppress its skepticism of pretextual law enforcement.

The Times is also perturbed because Bove wanted to obtain a search warrant for CUAD’s Instagram account, which he believed “had been used to make a threat.” Again, however, he got resistance from “line prosecutors” who fretted that “the statement at issue did not meet the legal definition of a threat.”

If you want to understand why Trump maintains loyal support from his base, this is a good example. Put aside that, to repeat, the government needn’t be able to prove the crime before investigating the germane actions — the objective of investigating being to amass proof of the crime. The plinth of the Biden DOJ’s patently politicized January 6 investigation was Trump’s speech that day at the Ellipse. Prosecutors (most prominently special counsel Jack Smith) proceeded on the pretext that Trump’s speech incited the riot, notwithstanding that the speech obviously did not meet federal law’s demanding standards for incitement — which, unsurprisingly, is why Trump was never charged with incitement even though Smith eventually brought many charges against him.

What’s more, in the J6 cases, in which the Biden DOJ exaggerated the peril of the Capitol riot by charging hundreds of people who did not engage in violence or felony crimes, those venerable “career prosecutors” made a habit of trying to inflate punishment by pushing for “terrorism enhancements” under the sentencing guidelines. That the DOJ could not prove, and therefore did not charge, terrorism crimes gave the Democrats and their friends at the Times zero pause.

Finally, after not informing readers that numerous people had been arrested by the NYPD because the Columbia “protests” had occasionally and predictably devolved into forcible crimes, Barrett castigates Bove, on behalf of the veteran “civil rights prosecutors” for, at one point, “instructing FBI agents on the joint terrorism task force team to put on their raid jackets, go to Columbia’s campus and stand in a phalanx near any protesters.”

I am not a fan of Bove or the Trump Justice Department. The Times report indicates that they cut the Southern District of New York (SDNY) prosecutors in Manhattan out of the Columbia investigations, running them from Main Justice with the civil rights division doing the work under the intemperate Bove’s supervision. That’s foolish. Barrett suggests thatjudges on the SDNY bench do not trust Bove or the Trump DOJ, which would not be a surprise after the government’s mendacious performance in dismissing the corruption case against Mayor Eric Adams — which provoked resignations by top SDNY lawyers, including the acting United States attorney installed by Trump.

All that said, one need neither be an admirer nor shy away from acknowledging how Trump’s appointees have habitually squandered the DOJ’s credibility with the judiciary to spot claptrap when the left dishes it out. Case in point: The Times’ resort to one Bennett Gershman, “a Pace University law professor who specializes in prosecutorial ethics,” for his hysterical assessment that Bove’s conduct in the Columbia investigation was “staggering” because

he did something that prosecutors are absolutely forbidden to do — use the law enforcement powers of the government to try to intimidate these individuals or destroy their rights[.]… This is so far past the line of prosecutorial professionalism and the commitment to principles of justice.

There is no rule of prosecutorial professionalism or principle of justice that requires government lawyers to pretend that agitation in support of a designated terrorist organization, to which the provision of material support is a federal crime prosecutable by up to 20 years’ imprisonment, is an improper exploitation of prosecutorial authority — especially when what radical sympathizers euphemistically describe as “protest” has a track record of catalyzing lawless action.