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Trump’s War on Harvard Ramps Up as DOJ Threatens to Pull All Funding

5 0
30.06.2025

Donald Trump’s administration is formally threatening to revoke all of Harvard University’s federal funding over allegations that the elite school violated Title VI.

The Department of Justice’s task force to combat antisemitism sent a formal notice to university President Alan Garber Monday alleging that “Harvard has been in some cases deliberately indifferent, and in others has been a willful participant in anti-Semitic harassment of Jewish students, faculty, and staff.”

“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” the notice said. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”

In 2024, Harvard received $686 million federal grants, making the government the largest financial source for the school’s many research programs. One in five undergraduate students rely on grants intended for low-income students, according to Politico.

The notice alleged that the administration’s investigation had found that the majority of Jewish students on campus had reported experiencing a negative bias, and nearly a quarter felt unsafe.

The notice also cited the multiweek student encampment to oppose Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, as well as the “lax” discipline against the students who’d participated, wrongly equating pro-Palestinian speech with antisemitic activity.

The notice comes amid ongoing negotiations in a bitter legal battle between Harvard and the Trump administration over allegations of antisemitism. Earlier this month, Trump signaled that negotiations with the university were going well.

This is the latest escalation in Trump’s monthslong petty war with the Ivy League institution after the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion in federal grants in April and threatened to revoke the school’s tax-exempt status. Earlier this month, the president’s efforts to see Harvard banned from accepting international students failed in court.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a Republican-led case that could upend campaign finance law and allow national party committees to spend even more on elections.

Right now, political parties can spend an unlimited amount on a candidate individually, but are limited in their “coordinated spending”—renting out venues, hiring consultants, or paying for travel. This case, introduced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee along with then-Senator JD Vance and former Representative Steve Cabot, seeks to overturn that coordinated spending limit.

If ruled in the GOP’s favor, this would be another massive blow to the effort to keep money out of politics. The country’s wealthiest have flaunted their ability to essentially buy elections, or have at least attempted to, for some time now. This most current effort is particularly shameless, given that the high court already upheld the same restrictions in a 2001 ruling. Now it may be repealed with the court’s 6–3 conservative majority.

“The court’s reasoning upholding these party spending limits has been undermined by more recent court campaign finance cases,” UCLA School of Law election expert Rick Hasen told NBC News. “The status quo—where outside groups like super PACs can raise unlimited sums but political parties face much more severe limitations—may create worse conditions in terms of empowering unaccountable groups and increasing negative ads.”

The case is set to be heard in the fall or early 2026.

Even the Iranians are surprised by how little damage Donald Trump’s bombs apparently did.

An intercepted communication between Iranian officials indicated that the nuclear facility airstrike had not achieved the level of damage touted by the Trump administration, reported The Washington Post, which spoke with four sources familiar with the classified material.

The president’s attack, conducted earlier this month without the express approval of Congress, damaged facilities in Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan. Trump celebrated that the attack had “completely and totally obliterated” the three sites in the immediate aftermath, but intelligence assessments have suggested otherwise.

A battle damage assessment by the Pentagon’s intelligence arm determined that the missile barrage only set Iran’s nuclear program back by a few months, rather than the “years” that Trump had advertised.

As with the Pentagon assessment, the White House did not dispute that the Iranian call had taken place, but fervently rejected its findings.

“It’s shameful that The Washington Post is helping people commit felonies by publishing out-of-context leaks,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “The notion that unnamed Iranian officials know what happened under hundreds of feet of rubble is nonsense. Their nuclear weapons program is over.”

Whether the sites had been hit by 30,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs was not in doubt, but the exact extent of the damage inflicted on Iran’s nuclear program has been heavily debated since the attack took place.

One Trump administration official brushed off the leaked call details, telling the Post that the Iranians were “wrong” because “we’ve destroyed their metal conversion facility.”

Senior U.S. intelligence officials warned that intercepted phone calls can only relay some information as they lack critical context.

“A single phone call between unnamed Iranians is not the same as an intelligence assessment, which takes into account a body of evidence, with multiple sources and methods,” one official told the Post.

Before the attacks took place, Iran had argued that it was seeking uranium for peaceful purposes, such as expanding its nuclear energy program. The nation has undergone years of nuclear site inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and as of two weeks ago was allowing IAEA inspectors to remain in the country, according to the United Nations entity.

Trump has been irate over the coverage of the bombings, insisting that journalists who reported on the Pentagon leak should be fired. Last week, Leavitt took that to a new level, using two........

© New Republic