With roughly 95 percent of precincts reporting election results, Bush trailed by less than 6,000 of the 112,000 cast. The Associated Press called the race two hours after polls closed.

After spending more than $17 million to topple Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., in July, AIPAC shifted its focus toward ousting Bush. The group poured more than $8 million into the race to unseat Bush in less than two months.

Outside groups dumped $18.2 million into the race. Bell’s backers outspent groups supporting Bush roughly four to one. AIPAC’s super PAC spent $8.5 million backing Bell’s campaign. Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent half a million and Major Democratic donor Reid Hoffman’s Mainstream Democrats PAC spent $1.5 million in support of Bell.

Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party spent just under $3 million in support of Bush

The infusion of cash made the race the fourth most expensive primary in House history, according to the Working Families Party. 

AIPAC’s money was spent on voter engagement efforts and phone banking in addition to digital and mail ads. One of the mailers, first reported by The Intercept, included images that distorted Bush’s features. AIPAC also helped bundle at least two-thirds of Bell’s campaign haul, Sludge reported.

Bush’s loss marks another victory for a pro-Israel movement seeking to silence critics of Israel’s human rights abuses and its ongoing war on Gaza. 

Bush was one of the first members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American member of Congress. Tlaib won her uncontested primary Tuesday after AIPAC’s efforts to recruit a challenger failed. 

Bush was first elected in 2020 when she beat former Rep. William Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary by less than three points. The win marked a seismic shift in St. Louis politics and the end of the Clay dynasty, which represented the area for a half-century. 

Bowman and Bush’s wins that year grew the incipient Squad from four to six, and, with the victories, progressives’ hopes for building a base in Congress that could work toward policies like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and criminal justice reforms. 

Bell built his career as a reformer, elected as the first Black lead prosecutor in St. Louis County on a platform of police accountability and restorative justice reforms. He beat a three-decade incumbent who failed to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown in 2014. Some prosecutors working in the office were so enraged by Bell’s win that they joined the police union. 

In a phone call last summer, Bell promised Bush he would not run against her. At the time, he was running for the U.S. Senate in Missouri. As AIPAC beefed up its campaign last fall to oust Squad members over ceasefire calls, Bell abandoned the Senate run and entered the House race. 

As the congressional race heated up, Bell’s critics in Missouri said he had failed to follow through on promises he made while campaigning for prosecutor. Civil rights groups published a report last month criticizing Bell’s office for failing to implement reforms and overseeing a steady rise in the jail population during his time in office. Others noted that while he campaigned on not seeking the death penalty, he let death penalty cases proceed without a challenge. 

Bell’s critics have also complained about comments he made shortly after Brown’s killing in 2014 that downplayed the racial divide in Ferguson. 

The post AIPAC Millions Take Down Second Squad Member Cori Bush appeared first on The Intercept.

Bell, who was serving as a municipal court judge and community college professor at the time, said he hoped Brown’s killing would “wake some people up” to get Black residents more engaged in their community and that the real “tragedy” of the situation was that the prosecutors hadn’t shared Wilson’s side of the story with the public, which was fomenting distrust in the process.

In Bell’s opinion, not releasing evidence that spoke to “the officer’s side of the story” was a mistake on the part of the prosecution. “To me that’s the tragedy of it — is that months later, I can’t even tell you whether I believe the officer should be indicted or not, because I don’t have the evidence,” Bell said.

Bell is now running with more than $8 million in backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee against Bush in the Democratic primary next week in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. Bush rose to national prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson. Bell was elected to Ferguson City Council in the first election following the surge of local protests, beating out a candidate supported by protester groups, and went on to unseat the St. Louis prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, whom he criticized in this interview for his handling of the Brown case.

Bell made the comments about Ferguson in November 2014 on the Nick Taliaferro Show, which went off the air in 2017. At the time, Bell was a municipal court judge in the small St. Louis suburb of Velda City, which was sued in 2015 in a federal civil rights case over running an unlawful bail system. 

Brown’s killing wasn’t unique to Ferguson, Bell said during the radio segment. “These are issues that have been plaguing our country since the beginning of our country. So when I hear, ‘Well it’s just Ferguson, it’s just Ferguson,’ even in this area, it’s not just Ferguson. These issues have been happening all over our region, it’s just this particular one happened in Ferguson and that’s what’s been playing in the media.” 

In the wake of Brown’s killing, there was a sense that the racial divide in Ferguson was comparable to that of Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s, Taliaferro said. “That’s just not the case,” Bell said. “In the United States, there is a racial divide. I think we agree with that. I’m saying, relatively speaking, Ferguson is not as bad.” 

Ferguson’s racial divide was “less than normal,” Bell said, notwithstanding issues that still needed work, including diversity in the police force and government. But the need for accountability was “on both sides,” Bell said. “African Americans need to get more involved.” When he ran for a council seat, Black people weren’t involved in the political process, he said. “I’m hoping this wakes some people up.” 

“That quote is pretty astonishing coming from not only a Black man in St. Louis but a Black man who lived in Ferguson and was a municipal court judge,” said Thomas Harvey, a civil rights lawyer who ran the nonprofit law firm in St. Louis that sued Velda City under Bell’s judgeship; Harvey is currently based in Los Angeles. “It’s also an indication of the deep racism in St. Louis that you could look at Ferguson and say, ‘It’s not that bad,’” Harvey said. 

The Bell campaign commented on the 2014 interview in a statement. “Cori Bush and her allies are intentionally mischaracterizing Wesley’s comments,” wrote Anjan Mukherjee, a spokesperson for the Bell campaign. “In the interview, he was criticizing then-Prosecuting Attorney McCulloch for being secretive and not releasing the evidence on Wilson, a criticism he felt so strongly about, that he ultimately ran against McCulloch and beat him.”

Compared to other cities in Missouri at the time, it’s accurate to say that Ferguson was in the middle of the spectrum of unconstitutional practices and racist policing, according to Harvey. “It’s just that they were all so racist, it’s weird to hear someone say Ferguson wasn’t that bad. I think it’s actually indicative of how bad racism is in St. Louis overall and the whole region. What you’re doing is comparing it to the worst, most explicit forms of racism, and saying, that isn’t exactly happening in Ferguson.”

Arrest rates, police violence, stops, tickets, fines, and jailing were overwhelmingly disproportionately targeted against Black people living in Ferguson or passing through, Harvey said. “That is well known,” he added, and at the time, it was common knowledge.

Clients who lived in and near Ferguson would tell him that they wouldn’t travel to see friends and family around holidays because they didn’t want to get arrested and spend Thanksgiving or Christmas in jail, he said. Harvey said he used to work with pregnant women in St. Louis, many of whom didn’t want to drive to get prenatal care for the same reason. They arranged taxis instead. 

“Wesley was a judge in a town where the exact same thing was happening,” Harvey said. The prevailing logic at the time was that it was better to have a Black judge who could empathize with the population even if the system was still operating in a racist way, Harvey said. “I think that just kind of reflects Wesley’s overall politics, which is, the system can still be racist, we can still be jailing people illegally, holding them for $50, exploiting them, destroying their lives, so long as there’s a sort of kinder, gentler person who is able to empathize with them when they come before the court.” 

“That was really surprising to hear, especially that then it was 2014, after Mike Brown was murdered,” Harvey said. “This was common knowledge well before Mike Brown was murdered, and it was especially common knowledge among any Black person I met who lived in or around North County,” he said. “It’s just shocking to hear him say that. He must mean Ferguson isn’t the worst city in that region, and I agree, there are worse,” he said. “It’s hard to understand.”

Bell was elected St. Louis County prosecuting attorney against a three-decade incumbent with close ties to the local police. Bell was lauded as the first Black head prosecutor in the jurisdiction, someone who would champion the progressive reforms St. Louis had been pushing for since before Brown’s killing. Staff attorneys in the St. Louis prosecutors’ office were so angered by his win that they left the prosecutors union to join the local police union, The Intercept reported. 

But Bell later disappointed supporters when he declined to charge Wilson in Brown’s killing after reviewing the case. 

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On the radio in 2014, Taliaferro asked Bell what he thought would happen if the grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. Bell said he didn’t think there was any chance Wilson would remain an officer in Ferguson, but that the “worst-case scenario” from a perspective of safety and unrest was if the grand jury decided not to indict. “There’s going to be some kind of violent response. It’s just a matter of how much. And obviously we’re all praying that it’s not a lot.” Bell said he believed in nonviolent protest “as opposed to violence.” 

Last month as the race against Bush heated up, civil rights groups issued a report claiming that his office had not delivered on the reforms he promised on the campaign trail, and that the jail population had steadily climbed under his leadership.

“Wesley Bell has exposed himself as a fraud,” said Working Families Party spokesperson Ravi Mangla. “He’s running on being a Ferguson reformer, when it’s clear he couldn’t see the deep-lying issues in his own community.” WFP is backing Bush in the race.

Harvey, who was co-counsel on the suit over the bail system while Bell was judge in Velda City, said they would have sued Bell personally if they could have. “If judges didn’t have judicial immunity, we would have sued the judges in those cities,” he said.

“They’re very clearly participants in this system and know what’s happening, and are frequently the reason people are incarcerated,” Harvey said. “It’s ridiculous to think they don’t know. It’s impossible for Wesley Bell or any municipal court judge to say they didn’t know what was happening.”

The post After Michael Brown’s Killing, Wesley Bell Called for “Accountability on Both Sides” in Ferguson Racism appeared first on The Intercept.

After Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in 2020, voters elected a reform prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, who promised to prosecute police misconduct and take a restorative justice approach to prosecution. 

The letter to Walz sent Wednesday from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, a copy of which was obtained by The Intercept, asks the governor to remove Moriarty’s office from all past, present, and future police use of force cases. With a former prosecutor as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, this pressure on Walz brings to the fore the split within the Democratic Party over how to handle the demand for continued police and criminal justice reform, as conservatives and law enforcement push to undo the reforms that have been put in place.

The push against Moriarty isn’t unique to Minnesota. Critics of reform have moved to oust or restrict the authority of prosecutors in dozens of states as reformers started winning elections more frequently amid the growing push for criminal justice reform. Between 2017 and early 2023, more than 37 bills to remove or limit the power of reform prosecutors were introduced in 17 states. As of early 2023, that number grew to more than 53 measures in 26 states, including efforts to restrict the power of prosecutors who refused to charge people who sought abortions. 

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In the letter to Walz, MPPOA general counsel Imran Ali wrote that police were concerned about Moriarty’s handling of use-of-force cases and that the association had “deep concerns about the impartiality and bias” from Moriarty against law enforcement. He suggested that Attorney General Keith Ellison could handle the cases “with proper funding.” Ellison built his career on reform and was once an ally of Moriarty’s. Last year, he removed a case from Moriarty’s office in which she declined to charge two teenage brothers accused of murder as adults.

“There is no way County Attorney Moriarty can act without bias and be impartial,” Ali wrote. “A significant number of peace officers have reached out to me and are troubled and fearful of this county attorney handling any use of force matters.” 

Moriarty’s critics in Minneapolis have been pushing to remove her from certain cases and oust her from the office since shortly after her term began in January 2023.

Last week, MPPOA filed an ethics complaint against Moriarty’s office for her handling of murder charges against a state trooper who killed a 33-year-old Black man, Ricky Cobb II, during a traffic stop last year. Moriarty’s office dropped the charges in June after the trooper’s defense team claimed that he was in fear for his partner’s life during the stop. Moriarty said the trooper used lawful force, and that her office couldn’t disprove his defense, but that she was “not backing down.”

Earlier this year, two Minnesota police associations sent a letter to Walz asking him to remove Moriarty from that case. At the time, four Republican members of Congress from Minnesota called for an investigation into Moriarty over the case, and at least one called on her to resign. Walz, MPPOA, and Moriarty’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We expect nothing less from a thoroughly corrupt police union that will do anything to prevent accountability for law enforcement accused of misconduct,” said Michael Collins, senior director of government affairs at Color of Change, a racial justice group. “Governor Tim Walz opened the door to these requests when he sided with the union in the Ricky Cobb II case. His behavior was shameful, up to and including calling the trooper’s defense lawyer to ask if they wanted the case to be reassigned to another county attorney. It’s no wonder the police union thinks he’s their guy. He should denounce the request and stop trying to pander to the right on criminal justice by undermining police accountability.”

Moriarty responded to the MPPOA’s ethics complaint last week, criticizing the police association for lobbying against efforts to hold police accountable and opposing regulations that would ban law enforcement from being involved in white supremacists groups.

The police group objected to Moriarty’s critiques in their letter to Walz this week. “These divisive comments were meant to divide our communities and elucidate her bias and belief that all peace officers are tied to white supremacist organizations,” Ali wrote. “As a person of color, and the general counsel of MPPOA, I find her comments offensive, repulsive and intend to injure and harm law enforcement all over the state, including harming my personal reputation.” 

Walz is not the only vice presidential candidate with a fraught relationship with the criminal justice reform movement. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another pick on Harris’s list, has also backed efforts to strip Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner of his authority to prosecute certain crimes. When Shapiro was state attorney general in 2019, his office pushed the Philadelphia Inquirer to be more critical of Krasner, The Intercept reported. Shapiro also backed a controversial bill passed by Pennsylvania lawmakers to strip Krasner’s ability to prosecute certain gun crimes in the city and give concurrent jurisdiction to the AG’s office. Shapiro’s office later said he would not use the measure to “act unilaterally or go around DA Krasner.” Local activists later pressured Shapiro into saying he would support a repeal of the bill. 

Correction: August 1, 2024, 2:04 p.m. ET
An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association as a union. The references have been removed.

The post Amid Veepstakes, Minnesota Cops Push Gov. Tim Walz to Back Off Police Violence Cases appeared first on The Intercept.

Yet despite its venture capital bounty and recent military contracts, XTEND has also been asking for charity.

“Join Us in Supporting Israel’s Defense,” read the text on the Xtend-Support-Israel.com website, directly above a large “DONATE” button. All donations would be “used for the immediate production & deployment of life saving systems for our IDF troops on the frontlines.” The site included a dazzling marketing montage of XTEND robots zooming across buildings, smashing through windows, and dropping what appears to be an explosive device from the air, “enabling soldiers to perform accurate maneuvers in complex combat scenarios.”

XTEND’s fundraising page — taken offline shortly after The Intercept raised questions about it — is one of several similar efforts soliciting charitable, tax-deductible donations to bolster Israeli national security. 

U.S. law governing charitable contributions gives wide leeway to nonprofits operating overseas, though questions linger about directing such donations to fund combat.

XTEND did not respond to a request for comment and questions about its Israel Defense Forces fundraising campaign. The Israeli nonprofit AlmaLinks, which was listed on the site as participating in the fundraiser, told The Intercept that upon learning of the campaign it asked XTEND to take it down. A PayPal page for the fundraiser told American donors that tax-free contributions could be sent through the U.S.-based donor-advised fund FJC: A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds. FJC disavowed the campaign and said the drone startup was being instructed to cease and desist use of its name. 

XTEND’s drones are flexible, affordable, and outfitted with powerful cameras, making them excellent surveillance tools that can stand in for human soldiers in dangerous situations. Certain models come with a claw, allowing them to drop any manner of item — or weapon — from high above. This functionality has proven transformative in the fighting between Russia and Ukraine. Even for Israel’s armed forces, among the best-equipped in the world, drones like XTEND’s offer the powerful advantage of an off-the-shelf, somewhat disposable miniature air force.

“Boots on the ground testimonials” included on the site leave little ambiguity about their use. “The best thing to have is drones,” says one uniformed Israeli soldier, his face blurred, in a video set before a house he states was recently cleared of terrorists. “Drones can go inside, do the search, clear the house, put even an explosive, instead of us going in.”

“We have killed dozens of vile terrorists, but we continue to constantly discover more terrorists who are hiding in buildings,” say soldiers in another testimonial video, who explain XTEND’s products are preferable because their radio uplink is not as easily jammed.

In interviews and marketing materials, XTEND tends to argue its drones are a life-saving reconnaissance technology that permit soldiers to hang back from danger while robots lead the charge. But the company is very much in the business of offense too. In December, XTEND told the Wall Street Journal that the IDF is using its robots to “drop grenades” in Gaza. “We were the first drones to enter Be’erik, Faraza, and deal directly (indoors, outdoors, and face to face) with these terrorists,” Shapira explained to the Israeli business publication Calcalist last year. “We learned so much from that.”

Israel’s war on Gaza has been integral to XTEND’s current success and its future, according to local business press reporting. Since the conflict erupted, the company has deepened its ties with the Israeli military. An article in Calcalist announcing the $40 million deal noted that, since the war’s start, “the company has shifted its entire focus in developing systems for the IDF. This new focus has led the company to a decision to upgrade its activity in the military sector.” In the May 10 press release announcing its latest venture capital round, Shapira — depicted in an attached photo dressed as a character from “The Matrix” — explained how the company’s new funds would help refine its drones’ software in part to better serve “Israel’s Ministry of Defense tier-1 units.”

So-called quadcopter drones similar to those manufactured by XTEND have been implicated in a litany of gruesome civilian deaths and injuries. A June 4 report by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor described how the IDF has “ramped up” its use of small quadcopters to drop explosives and fire mounted rifles at Palestinians in Gaza.

One Palestinian who spoke to the organization recounted the killing of his cousin: “We were approached by a quadcopter as we went by a side street. I warned him to run and hide as soon as I saw it, but it is likely that his poor hearing prevented him from hearing my call. I told him to hide, as I was doing, when all of a sudden I heard an explosion. When I heard Ibrahim calling, I told him to stay [put] to the right until assistance arrived. I saw him being targeted by a quadcopter bomb.”

On the webpage soliciting donations for its drones, XTEND listed AlmaLinks, a nonprofit network headquartered in Tel Aviv that connects business leaders with a focus on Jewish and Israeli communities, as the organization that would process donations. 

“All donations will be used for the immediate production and deployment of life saving systems for our IDF troops on the frontlines,” the site read. “All donations are kindly processed through the ALMA LINKS non-profit organization. www.almalinks.org We kindly request that you fill out the information here and at the dedicated donation page for tracking purposes.”

Shapira, XTEND’s CEO, is listed on AlmaLink’s website as a member of its board of trustees. AlmaLinks told The Intercept it had no knowledge of XTEND’s fundraiser and that Shapira does not serve in a decision-making role.

“We were not aware of the XTEND website asking for funds in our name, and as soon as we became aware of it we asked them to take it down,” a spokesperson for AlmaLinks said. 

Shapira “is on a purely advisory board of trustees that includes many people and does not have authority to make decisions,” the spokesperson said.

The fiscal sponsor for AlmaLinks is FJC: A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds, a nonprofit donor-advised fund based in New York. Founded in 1995, FJC manages over $300 million in assets and has provided over $400 million in philanthropic grants around the world, according to its website. FJC accepts tax-deductible donations on behalf of AlmaLinks, which then passes the money onward to recipients such as XTEND. Because contributions to foreign nonprofits like AlmaLinks are not tax-deductible, a donation to the American fiscal sponsor FJC would allow donors to benefit from U.S. tax laws.

Potential American donors who came across the online fundraiser were directed to a PayPal page bearing a checkmark icon confirming FJC is the recipient of the funds, and noting any contributions would be earmarked for XTEND.

In response to an inquiry from The Intercept about its role in the fundraiser, FJC CEO Sam Marks disavowed the campaign. “FJC has no relationship with XTEND, and that company is not authorized to use FJC’s 501(c)(3) tax exempt status to fundraise for any campaign,” Marks explained in an emailed statement. “They are being instructed to cease and desist any fundraising campaign using FJC’s name.” 

Soon after this exchange, the PayPal page was taken down. Marks did not respond when asked if the PayPal page had been set up without FJC’s knowledge, when FJC became aware of the fundraising campaign, or how much money had been raised to date.

XTEND did not respond to questions about whether it organized the fundraiser without the advance knowledge of AlmaLinks and FJC, and about Shapira’s role on AlmaLinks’ board of trustees.

Diala Shamas, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, questioned whether it was appropriate for a nonprofit to use charitable donations to support a war effort, particularly one that has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

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“I’m aware of reports of quadcopters being involved in crimes in Gaza. There is nothing charitable about that,” said Shamas, whose nonprofit legal advocacy group is working on a New York bill to restrict tax-deductible donations to illegal Israeli settlements. “I can’t see this fitting in the New York law definition of charitable purpose, not the IRS definition of charitable purpose.”

Another issue is whether those efforts are supplying equipment being used in violation of international law, Shamas added. “Setting aside the question of charitability all together, there are serious questions of complicity in war crimes here. Even if it weren’t a nonprofit, even if it were just a traditional company, there would be serious legal risks here.”

Legal experts have long warned that charitable contributions cannot be used to support combat, an issue that came up at the height of the war in Ukraine. Charities funding combat against Russia’s invasion faced less scrutiny because of widespread political support for Ukraine, attorney Daniel Kurtz told the Associated Press last year. “You can’t support war fighting, can’t support killing people, even if it’s killing the bad guys,” he said at the time. “It’s not consistent with the law of charity.”

Henry Dale, director of New York University law school’s National Center on Philanthropy and the Law, said that U.S. tax code — and an extreme lack of oversight by the Internal Revenue Service — affords a great deal of latitude to efforts like those of XTEND. Even though XTEND’s fundraising page made clear that the money was for drones, specifically its “Human Extension Platforms” that aid soldiers in combat, the fact that donated funds were advertised as being directed to FJC, whose PayPal site did not mention drones, likely legally insulates the campaign overall, Dale said.

Though the IRS has the ability to strip organizations of their tax-exempt status for engaging in efforts contrary to public policy, “the edges of that doctrine are completely unclear,” Dale said.

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Lawmakers and nonprofits experts have long criticized the network of U.S. nonprofits that funnel millions of tax-deductible dollars to settlements in the West Bank that the international community recognizes as illegal. Those concerns have come back with new urgency amid the surge of U.S. fundraising for the Israel Defense Forces during Israel’s war on Gaza.

Pending legislation in New York targets nonprofits that facilitate such donations by making it easier to sue the groups for civil penalties. Lawmakers expanded and reintroduced the “Not on Our Dime” bill in May to include charities in New York fundraising for the Israel Defense Forces amid Israel’s destruction in Gaza. The role of any nonprofit taking part in the XTEND fundraising operation is the kind of activity the legislation seeks to target, said Shamas of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is part of the campaign backing the bill. FJC’s work includes fundraising for a number of groups that responded to aid Israel after the October 7 attacks, including Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. As recently as 2021, the group has also directed contributions to the Jewish National Fund, which has long financed activity in Israeli settlements. 

New York Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, who introduced the bill, said the measure would allow the state attorney general to fine groups funding the genocide, including FJC.

“The purpose of tax breaks is to encourage charitable activity: feeding the poor, clothing the needy, and funding the arts — not to support war crimes and genocide,” said Mamdani. “Funding Israeli war crimes is inconsistent with a charitable purpose.”

XTEND’s fundraiser is just one of many ongoing drone crowdfunding efforts pegged to the war, a review by The Intercept found.

The Israeli Resilience Association, which describes itself as “a group of experienced professionals, and officers from the IDF Special Forces, Secret Service (Shin Bet), and the special forces of the Israeli Police,” has to date raised over $287,000 to send small hobbyist drones into Gaza. Noting that the “current crisis in Israel has put every community throughout Judea and Samaria on high alert,” the One Israel Fund, meanwhile, has raised over $160,000 to furnish illegal settlements in the West Bank with surveillance drones “in cooperation with the regional and local security personnel.”

Even without the legislation, genocide is illegal under international law, Mamdani added. “Fundraising for IDF units carrying out what has been called a plausible genocide in federal and international courts should merit inquiry. Advocating to end tax deductions for these crimes is to call for the bare minimum.”

The post The Crowdfunding Campaign for Deadly Israeli Military Drones appeared first on The Intercept.

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has gone on to spend a total of $7 million so far to oust Bush. Its recent mailers, reviewed by The Intercept, show images of Bush with distorted features that make her forehead look bigger and elongate her features.

Bush condemned the ads as part of a trope of using racist caricatures to target candidates based on their ethnicity.

“It is shameful that, in 2024, our communities are still being targeted with such blatant racism.”

“It is shameful that, in 2024, our communities are still being targeted with such blatant racism from political campaigns, let alone in a Democratic primary,” Bush said in a statement to The Intercept. “The people of St. Louis deserve better than to see their first Black Congresswoman racistly distorted into a caricature — I shouldn’t have to ask my opponent to condemn his biggest funders for putting out an ad like this and to apologize to the people of this district.”

AIPAC, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, has been one of the single largest outside spenders in an election cycle that’s broken records for the most expensive House primaries in history. According to Sludge, AIPAC helped raise two-thirds of the campaign funding for Bush’s Democratic opponent, St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell. (Neither United Democracy Project nor Bell’s campaign responded to requests for comment.)

The photo of Bush used in the AIPAC mailers was taken from a Missouri Independent article. In the mailers, part of Bush’s forehead has been photoshopped and appears sloped. The photos are also color altered.

The Missouri Independent said AIPAC’s use of the photo violated its site rules.

“As a nonprofit news organization we do not allow campaigns or political groups to use our photography,” said Jason Hancock, the editor-in-chief of the Missouri Independent. “We would never give a PAC permission to use our photos, and doing so without our knowledge or permission violates our terms of use.”

Ads With Racist Tropes

The mailers are the latest in a long history of ads that have distorted candidates’ skin color and facial features in line with stereotypical racist tropes. Bush’s campaign said ads from her 2020 opponent, former Democratic Rep. Willian Lacy Clay, also darkened her skin. In 2022, a Democratic firm working for Bowman’s opponent ran ads that darkened Bowman’s skin.

Republican ads run during the 2020 Georgia Senate race darkened Raphael Warnock’s skin and enlarged Jon Ossoff’s nose.

With its attacks on Bush, the lobby group is looking to oust a second member of the progressive Squad. The group spent more than $17 million to unseat Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., last month.

Since toppling Bowman last month, AIPAC has shifted its focus toward the upcoming primary in St. Louis. It’s dropped $3 million on the race against Bush in less than a month.

AIPAC has long been known for its behind-the-scenes lobbying but expanded its electoral presence and started giving directly to candidates in 2021. The group launched two new political action committees that year, including a regular PAC and its super PAC, United Democracy Project. The new electoral investment has gone largely toward ousting progressive members of Congress.

AIPAC has grown to one of the single largest outside groups spending in primaries this cycle and flooded Democratic primaries with millions of dollars, drawn largely from Republicans, right-wing billionaires, and megadonors.

AIPAC’s infusion of cash into Bowman’s race made the election the most expensive House Democratic primary in history. And AIPAC isn’t just spending on ads — it’s paying for phone banking and get-out-the-vote calls as well.

Justice Democrats, a progressive group backing Bush, called on Bell’s campaign to denounce the ads.

“In Wesley Bell’s name, AIPAC is peddling racist caricatures to attack Missouri’s first Black Congresswoman in a disgusting new low even for them,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. “Bell should immediately condemn these racist pieces of mail and apologize to the people of St. Louis for allowing his biggest financial backers to promote outright racism in this Democratic primary.”

The post AIPAC Used Distorted Photo of Cori Bush in $7 Million Negative Ad Blitz appeared first on The Intercept.

Nearly two weeks after the July 13 shooting, the public remains in the dark about some basic points along the timeline, including when rally attendees alerted law enforcement to the gunman climbing onto a nearby roof and how federal, state, and local officers coordinated once he opened fire. Recordings of calls to emergency services could help shed light on what happened.

Soon after the shooting, The Intercept submitted a request to Butler County for copies of recorded 911 calls under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law. On Monday, the county denied that request, citing part of the statute that generally exempts 911 recordings from disclosure. 

“It is the policy of Butler County only to release 911 audio under court order or by subpoena,” a county public records clerk wrote in an email. “Therefore, the request is denied.” 

A crucial provision in state law, however, gives Butler County the ability to release these recordings. Pennsylvania agencies and courts can release 911 recordings if they determine that “the public interest in disclosure outweighs the interest in nondisclosure.” 

As The Intercept wrote to the county, if the attempted assassination of a former president and current presidential candidate does not qualify as an overwhelming public interest, it’s not clear what ever could. 

The county did not respond to The Intercept’s requests to release the 911 recordings under this carveout. On Friday, The Intercept filed an appeal to the state Office of Open Records.

Other press outlets trying to get 911 recordings from the Trump rally have also gotten the runaround, according to Melissa Bevan Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. 

“The carveout is there for situations where the public interest in the recordings is high, a situation like this,” Melewsky told The Intercept.

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“Obviously there is huge public interest — legitimate, compelling public interest — in hearing these recordings,” said attorney Joy Ramsingh, who previously adjudicated Office of Open Records appeals. “Potential embarrassment to the agency is not supposed to be part of the test.”

Ramsingh said Butler County’s refusal to address the public’s interest in these recordings was “impermissible.”

“At a minimum, they need to be articulating to the public why they won’t release them,” Ramsingh said. “My gut tells me it has something to do with potential embarrassment to the agency.” 

The post Why Won’t Authorities Release 911 Recordings From Trump Rally Shooting? appeared first on The Intercept.

News of the leadership vacuum comes as experts and officials call for investigations into the communications failures between local, state, and federal agents that allowed a shooter to hit Trump, kill one rally attendee, and injure at least two others.

Former Butler Township Police Department Chief John Hays retired last month, both Hays and a department official who answered the phone told The Intercept. There is no acting chief, but Lt. Matthew Pearson is the current head of the department. The department, which employs around 20 people, did not immediately respond to a request for further information about the absence of a chief. 

Amid reports of apparent failures by Secret Service agents manning the event, the lack of communication between various local, state, and federal agencies likely placed disproportionate responsibility on local police, said Jeffrey Fagan, a professor at Columbia University Law School who studies policing.

“Local cops were left to shoulder the burden of security without much help from any federal agency, whether Secret Service or the FBI or anyone else,” he said. “They should have yelled for help, and so should the county government leaders.” 

The shooting has raised new questions in the debate over police funding, gun control, and how well officers can be expected to handle active shooters, regardless of resources and training. 

Similar questions plagued officials in the wake of the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, after police on the scene refused to enter the building, even after receiving training, first reported by The Intercept, to put themselves in harm’s way to stop active shooters,

A head of department would normally take ultimate responsibility for answering such questions. Uvalde schools police chief Pete Arredondo was recently indicted for his actions on the day, including the failure to follow the training.

“There should have been a protocol in place for coordination between the acting head of the local police and the federal agencies,” said Fagan. “Or the County Executive and that person’s designee. But it’s nuts for the Secret Service to delegate any aspect of presidential or former presidential security to the local police regardless.”

Law enforcement agencies’ failures on Saturday undermine the notion of perfect security, said Alex Vitale, professor and coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College at the City University of New York. 

“There is no world where if we just assign enough police, we will eliminate all risk,” Vitale said. 

Why and how there was a profound breakdown in communication between local police and state and federal agents needs scrutiny, Vitale added. It appears that local police were made aware of the shooter, took some inadequate action to neutralize the shooter, but did not successfully communicate to the Secret Service, he said, and the Secret Service may not have communicated their plans clearly to local police. 

“Did the local police fail to make certain kinds of procedures or equipment available to their officers to ensure this communication?” Vitale said. “Or was it just in the heat of the moment, local cops thought they could handle it without bothering the Secret Service, and clearly they couldn’t handle it? We’d want to know who’s in charge of the local police and what the plan of the day was.”

“A breakdown in communication could be because of inadequate command and control procedures at the local police level.”

Blame Game

The tiny Butler Township Police Department was one of several law enforcement agencies on the grounds at the rally on Saturday where 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks killed one attendee and injured at least two other people.

Secret Service agents were also on the scene, and their failure to prevent the shooting has prompted calls for an investigation into the agency. 

With accusations flying, experts and responding agents have pointed the finger at each other. 

Butler County Sheriff Michael Slupe described the response to the shooting as a security failure, but did not blame any single agency. He also defended a Butler Township police officer who encountered Crooks just before the shooting took place and retreated after Crooks pointed his rifle at him. (The sheriff’s office and Butler Township Board of Commissioners President Jim Lokhaiser Jr. did not immediately respond to requests for comment.)

Reached for comment, former Butler Township Police Chief John Hays said his last day at the department was June 14. “I really don’t have much information other than what I’m reading in the paper or hearing on the news,” he said. 

Local police, Vitale said, should not be the only ones bearing blame for the communication breakdown. Instead of trying to pinpoint responsibility, he said, the broader problem lies in the idea that policing is politically neutral and that it can produce perfect public safety. 

“The fear of risk is weaponized by those who want to both gain political advantage by promising a risk-free future that they know they can’t deliver on,” Vitale said. “Those folks will weaponize the security apparatus to serve their political interests rather than producing any true, broad-based security for people.” 

“Those security services,” he said, “their first overriding job will be the neutralization of their political enemies, whether it’s grassroots movements, or whatever.”

Pennsylvania lawmakers have long stymied legislation to strengthen gun laws in the state, even while decrying gun violence. Earlier this year, state lawmakers fought a ban on the gun used in the assassination attempt. 

In Congress, Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., who represents the district, has voted against efforts to pass an assault weapons ban. (Kelly did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) 

The Butler County Sheriff’s Office is currently advertising a basic handgun safety class and services to apply for or renew licenses to carry concealed firearms. According to its website, the office was accepting applications to carry weapons on the day of the shooting.

The post The Local Police Department Responding to Trump Shooting Has No Chief appeared first on The Intercept.

At least four members of the Squad have expressed support for Biden since the first presidential debate. Two have enthusiastically backed him, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., reiterated that Biden was the nominee and said questions to the contrary were “losing the plot.” Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., said she and Biden were facing the same fight against extremist Republicans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have also affirmed their support.

The boost from progressives comes even as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday that Biden was running out of time to decide whether to stay in the race. 

It has left media outlets asking why the Squad among all Democrats is backing Biden “so forcefully”?

But not all progressives are lining up behind Biden. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., one of the most vocal members criticizing U.S. military support for the war on Gaza, has said she will not endorse the president for reelection. And last week, Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., said that if Biden decided to step down, she would support Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee.

Progressives in Washington insisted that members of the Squad and their staffs were not frustrated with each other over how each member approached questions about Biden. They explained the division as merely a difference in messaging between political allies. 

Two sources who work closely with Squad offices said progressive efforts to boost Biden had less to do with him as the presidential candidate and more to do with protecting their own political futures.

No progressive members have explicitly called on Biden to drop out of the race.

Shortly after the debate, observers criticized Squad members for not immediately joining calls from at least 10 Democrats in nine states, including a slew of moderates, for Biden to step down. Progressives waited to see how the fallout would play out after the debate and over the July 4 holiday weekend. 

There wasn’t a specific plan for how the Squad would respond, and there was no coordination with offices that wanted to stay silent, sources said. Some strategists questioned whether progressives calling on Biden to step down would have had the opposite effect and if it was more effective to have moderate Democrats make the case instead. But as members faced mounting questions from the media, different members took more deliberate stances in support of the president.

One progressive strategist who spoke with The Intercept on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely said there were pragmatic reasons for each member’s decision to speak out or keep quiet on Biden. “There is a divide between the most progressive members who feel like they need to show fealty for self-preservation or for future ambition and those who are willing to just hang back and not offer support because they don’t need anything,” said the strategist, who is in regular communication with Squad members’ staff. 

Several Squad members have so far managed to stay silent on the Biden question.

There wasn’t a specific plan for how the Squad would respond, and there was no coordination with offices that wanted to stay silent, sources said.

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, has not weighed in on whether Biden should stay in the race. He is reportedly eyeing a run for chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus next year, which makes it less likely that he would take a vocal stance against Biden. Casar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, who says she has been focused on making sure that former President Donald Trump doesn’t win reelection, is not taking a position on Biden’s campaign. “At the moment, Congresswoman Ramirez is not commenting on the issue,” communications director Jowen Ortiz Cintrón said in a statement to The Intercept. 

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who lost his reelection last month, has not spoken out about Biden’s campaign. His office did not respond to a request for comment. 

The offices of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, Bush, and Jayapal did not respond to a request for comment. Tlaib’s office declined to comment. Lee’s office directed questions about her position to her full interview with WESA. 

Squad members had previously led a solid block of opposition to Biden’s funding for Israel’s war on Gaza. Those efforts have slowly given way to support for his campaign among some members as the presidential election looms nearer, leaving Tlaib as one of the lone voices withholding her endorsement over Biden’s support for Israel. Even before the debate, Omar reiterated her support for Biden despite his handling of Gaza. 

Sanders backed Biden in an interview over the weekend. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Pressley joined him. Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the Capitol that she had spoken with Biden, that he was not leaving the race, and that she would continue to support him as the nominee. The same day, Omar reiterated her support for Biden and called him “the best president of my lifetime.” Pressley said Biden was the nominee, “and I think we’re losing the plot here.” 

On Tuesday, Bush compared her reelection fight to Biden’s and said the party should unite to defeat extremist Republicans. Bush’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Jayapal also expressed support for Biden but said she was “listening carefully” to members in a statement on Monday. Jayapal said she would continue working to ensure that Democrats defeated Trump in November. 

Jayapal’s statement avoided taking a definitive stance on Biden’s campaign and invited criticism that progressives have diluted what was once a strong opposition to Biden’s policy toward Israel. After Jayapal faced intense blowback for calling Israel a “racist state,” she has since affirmed her support of funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, along with Ocasio-Cortez, who has also been campaigning for Biden. 

The post Even Centrists Are Questioning Biden. But the Squad Is Divided. appeared first on The Intercept.

“I think it would be a big mistake for the Democratic Party to switch gears but stay the course on this particular issue that has galvanized so many people in an unprecedented way in the primaries and who continue showing up and trying to advocate to be heard in a system that is continuing, they feel, to ignore them,” said Halah Ahmad, a policy analyst and spokesperson with Listen to Wisconsin, the state’s “uninstructed” campaign. 

“They should let that policy die with this administration and move towards being a party that stands by its actual values,” Ahmad continued, “which are meant to be anti-war and pro-peace and pro-human rights and international law — which is in direct contrast to everything a Trump candidacy stands for.”

Related

1 in 5 Wisconsin Democrats Said Gaza War Will Impact Their Primary Vote

The anti-war movement to vote “uncommitted” instead of supporting Biden took off earlier this year ahead of Michigan’s Democratic primary in February. Advocates for the protest vote later launched chapters in other critical swing states including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and have netted more than half a million votes in more than a dozen primaries. The movement has garnered support for at least 25 delegates at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. 

Activists from around the country told The Intercept that they will advocate for an anti-war agenda at the convention in August and withhold their vote in November unless an adequate candidate steps up, listing policy priorities such as support for a permanent ceasefire and standing up to the pro-Israel lobby as it intervenes in Democratic primaries. Even as the Biden campaign insists that he will not step aside, many Democrats appear to be lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative candidate, with some Democratic governors being floated as well. 

“My No. 1 criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza.”

“My No. 1 criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza,” said Saad Farooq, an uncommitted voter in Massachusetts. Farooq said it was unlikely that the Democratic National Committee would select any candidate who took a stance against Israel’s ongoing war and that he would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein if she were to appear on the ballot in Massachusetts. 

Cole Sandick, who left his primary ballot in New York blank, said his apprehension over supporting Biden stemmed completely from his handling of the war on Gaza. “The rest of his presidency has been imperfect but better than I thought it was going to be, and I was fully on board to vote for him prior to October 7,” Sandick wrote. “Really all I want from an alternative candidate is simply *some* moderation on this issue. Some commitment to a ceasefire, some recognition of the carnage that’s taken place. Some concern for the civil liberties being ripped away from all those like me who dissent and protest.”

Sandick said he would support Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or Harris. “Nominating Biden at this point is a death sentence.” 

Shaneez Hameed, an uncommitted voter in California, also said that the war in Gaza is a red line for him as a voter. 

“Any new candidate will have to do something about stopping the genocide in Palestine and also be open to making changes with the supreme Court and filibuster,” Hameed wrote. “Or else, nothing changes and there is no point in voting.” 

He mentioned Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as a candidate who might fit the bill, but conceded that there is no “realistic chance of him being nominated.” Hameed said he wasn’t familiar with Harris’s policies, “but if she even entertains the idea of a ceasefire, I will vote.”

Harris, for her part, reportedly pushed the White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinian suffering in public statements about the war. In March, Harris delivered a speech that symbolized a U.S. escalation, as she more forcefully called for an “immediate ceasefire” and urged Israel to do more to increase the flow of aid to Gaza. “No excuses,” she said. Even then, reports surfaced that National Security Council officials had watered down parts of her speech. 

“We have to have a goal that we start working on right now, for peace and for an equal measure of security for Israelis and Palestinians,” Harris said later that month. “Palestinians have a right to self-determination; they have a right to dignity, and we’re going to have to work on that.”

For some activists, Harris’s association with Biden makes her candidacy a nonstarter. Mohamed Hussein, an uncommitted voter in Minnesota, said that he didn’t want to see anyone from the current administration replace Biden. “I would have no faith in them to speak up when they can’t even speak up to the obvious circus going on,” he said. “I would question their ability to handle difficult situations and decisions because it seems like no one in the administration is pulling the alarm on the embarrassing situation.” 

Harris is “guilty by association,” Hussein wrote. “In my eyes, she’s either ok with Biden running as president again or she’s not able to talk him out of it. Both are bad qualities in a president.”

Hussein added that he was interested in a governor possibly replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket because they might be less tied to D.C. politics. “I feel like they’re less likely to be influenced by people in Washington,” he said. 

Will Dawson, an uncommitted voter in Washington, D.C., named several factors that could get him to switch his vote from the Green Party’s Stein to another politician. First on his list is a promise to call for an immediate ceasefire and fighting the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Congress. 

“This candidate would also ideally work toward pulling further away from the Israeli colonial project over time, with the goal being repealing our absurd financial support, ending the foreign interest agency of AIPAC, and pushing for a nation-wide boycott a la [South Africa] during their apartheid,” Dawson wrote. 

The candidate would also have to push to reform the Supreme Court, he added. “The candidate would have to promise to both push for justice impeachment, and expand the courts,” Dawson said.“If a replacement candidate met both of these requirements, I would absolutely consider switching my vote from Jill Stein. Hell, I might even knock doors/canvass for them!”  

As uncommitted voters list their conditions, concerns around backing a candidate who supports Israel’s war are spreading to others within the Democratic Party apparatus. One DNC delegate, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told The Intercept that they have been experiencing reservations as a delegate due to Biden’s unrelenting support for Israel. “Do I really want to, you know, even in any way, whether it’s symbolic or not, contribute to Biden being our nominee? And I struggled, because it’s — do I want to vote for someone who’s supporting a genocide? No.”

The post Whether It’s Biden or Someone Else, Gaza Remains Top Priority for “Uncommitted” Voters appeared first on The Intercept.

Now, as Democrats scramble to assess the damage, the question has turned to how — or if — the party will address Biden’s candidacy crisis at the Democratic National Convention in August. 

Related

I Resigned From the DNC in Protest of Biden’s Backing of Palestinian Slaughter

“They’ve just been trying to skate to the general election with as minimal exposure as possible to the public. And now it’s blown up on them,” said Thomas Kennedy, a former delegate to the Democratic National Committee who resigned in January over Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. “The delegates knew, the electeds knew, the donors knew, obviously the staffers know,” he said. “Everybody knew.” 

Efforts to raise concerns within the DNC about Biden’s health have been definitively shut down for years, Kennedy said. One DNC member who suggested that another candidate should run in 2024 said he was attacked by other members and faced with a vote to remove him from the committee. “That’s the sort of pushback that any sort of — not just dissent, but any sort of mentioning of this topic — has been happening for two years,” Kennedy said. 

Biden’s campaign, for its part, made clear on Friday that he has no intention of backing down. Asked about his debate performance, campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt emphasized that Biden would not be stepping down and pointed to the campaign’s $14 million fundraising haul after the debate and a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday. “He just gave a very forceful speech at a rally in NC with a fired up crowd,” Hitt wrote to The Intercept. In comments made on Air Force One Friday afternoon, Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler doubled down: “Joe Biden is the nominee.”

Current and former delegates told The Intercept that there is little chance the DNC would change course. The convention, the delegates said, would likely follow the same pro forma processes that have sidelined reform efforts and with them, the party’s progressive wing. The convention has already moved the vote for the presidential nomination online, weeks before the actual convention is held in person in Chicago. 

There are mechanisms to allow for an open convention to nominate another candidate, but the party has avoided that option as a last resort, and it would be too late at this point, said Nadia Ahmad, a DNC member in Florida. Biden would have to decide to step aside on his own accord. Or, delegates would have to organize themselves quickly to commit to another candidate. Given that the nomination vote will take place ahead of the convention, Ahmad said that any open nomination process would have to take place online too, which is unlikely. 

“There’s definitely an appetite for what I would call the combustion factor,” Ahmad said. “People are willing to burn things down to maybe get them to work. That’s where you see the rise of a third party.” 

The convention has long stopped serving as a place for democratic decision-making, she added. “The Democratic Party is more invested in trying to maintain control than it is in trying to win an election in November.” 

Another DNC member who requested anonymity to avoid reprisal said the debate only emphasized what progressives have been saying about the DNC in recent cycles. “Unless Biden withdraws, the convention is a stage-managed coronation.” 

Kennedy noted that the days of action-packed political conventions are far behind us. “These are not the conventions of 1968 or 1972 that we read about,” he said. “They’re just highly choreographed, top-down affairs where there’s not a lot of room for political maneuvering or opposing sides or anything that strays away from the establishment. And the delegates are carefully chosen and funneled in a way that they’re part of the party machinery and hackery.” 

Days before the debate, the New York Times published a story about how the president was battling “misleading videos” showing his age-related deterioration. Very quickly into the debate on Thursday evening, Biden’s campaign was battling on another front: how to stop the bleeding as coverage swirled about how the performance would affect his chances at winning the November election. During a routine, post-debate call with surrogates last night, campaign staff acknowledged that the debate was rocky, according to a source who attended. By the next day, the party apparatus was back to normal messaging.

The post Can Anything Stop the Democratic National Convention From Being a Biden Coronation? appeared first on The Intercept.

The New York Times published the headline “Bowman Falls in House Primary, Overtaken by Flood of Pro-Israel Money” — before swapping it out for “Bowman Falls to Latimer in a Loss for Progressive Democrats.” Other coverage emphasized that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s spending wasn’t the only factor in the race and that Bowman’s flaws made him particularly vulnerable, as did changed district lines that made his reelection even tougher. 

“This was an act of desperation from a pro-war lobby that is at odds with the majority of Americans, including American Jews.”

Progressive strategists, however, had a much more clear takeaway from the results. 

“You don’t drop $15 million on an election if your positions are popular,” said Eva Borgwardt⁩, national spokesperson for the Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, which endorsed Bowman. “This was an act of desperation from a pro-war lobby that is at odds with the majority of Americans, including American Jews.”

Borgwardt⁩ was referring to nearly $15 million spent on the race by AIPAC, the Israel lobby’s flagship in the U.S. Millions more poured in from AIPAC-aligned groups and donors, bringing the outside spending total to around $25 million.

Bowman’s supporters emphasized that AIPAC attacked him not only because of his criticism of human rights abuses in Israel, but also because he has supported progressive policies that are popular among the party’s base. 

“Congressman Bowman’s progressive platform — which includes defending Palestinian rights and halting weapons to the Israeli military — is popular among Democratic voters,” said Beth Miller, political director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action, which endorsed Bowman. “AIPAC had to spend a truly unprecedented amount of money in order to buy NY-16.” 

“It is noteworthy that many of AIPAC’s ads did not even mention Israel,” she said. “AIPAC understands that they are losing on the issues, because voters and constituents do not want to fund a genocide.”  

The amount of spending on the race should be alarming to everyone who cares about democracy, said Sophie Ellman-Golan, director of strategic communications at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

“Now we know how much it costs to buy an election,” she said. “That price tag was nearly $25 million.”

AIPAC invested historic amounts of money in the race because it saw that unconditional support for Israel was unpopular among Democratic voters, Ellman-Golan said. “They would not have spent this much money if they were not scared,” she said. “You don’t spend $25 million — an unheard of amount in a primary — if you’re feeling confident in your candidate.”

Progressive groups were outspent 8 to 1 in their support for Bowman, which totaled $1.75 million. Justice Democrats, which backed Bowman’s first campaign in 2020, spent $1.3 million on Tuesday’s race and helped raise more than $200,000 for Bowman’s campaign, with an average contribution of $35. The Working Families Party spent more than $500,000 on ads in the race and sent more than 300,000 text messages on Bowman’s behalf. 

“Republican billionaires just bought a safe Democratic seat through a Democratic primary,” said WFP National Director Maurice Mitchell. “That’s something that should alarm everyone in the coalition, not just progressives.”

Justice Democrats’ communications director, Usamah Andrabi, said the takeaway from Tuesday’s race is that Democrats are allowing big money — and Republican donors — to shape elections.  

Bowman’s loss is not a death knell for progressives, he added, but proof that the left represents a threat to the status quo that’s worth tens of millions of dollars for its opponents. 

“AIPAC knows that its policies and positions are deeply out of step with the majority of Democratic voters, who support a permanent ceasefire, who support conditioning military funding to Israel, and who believe that Israel is committing a genocide,” Andrabi said, pointing to another AIPAC target, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who is fighting for her seat against a primary opponent. “Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, and the Squad have always represented the mainstream positions of the Democratic Party, and that is why they’re such a threat to AIPAC and corporate interests.”

“It is just such a cynical, false attack, and it’s so dangerous.”

With AIPAC’s entry into electoral politics — the group launched two PACs in 2021 after decades of lobbying on Capitol Hill — some liberals and progressives have struggled to talk about the group’s spending because of antisemitic tropes about Jewish people using wealth to exert secret control. Ellman-Golan, of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, however, thinks circumstances now dictate an open discussion. 

“It’s extremely concerning to not only see people defending the political conditions in which antisemitism is most likely to be fueled, but then decrying those of us who dare to speak out against this undemocratic purchasing of votes,” she said. “It is just such a cynical, false attack, and it’s so dangerous. If we’re going to dismantle antisemitism, that project lives squarely on the left. We’re the ones who can do it, and we’re trying. And they’re not helping.”

The post Progressives on AIPAC’s Defeat of Bowman: “Now We Know How Much It Costs to Buy an Election” appeared first on The Intercept.

Polls in the Bronx and Westchester closed at 9 p.m., and results were announced within the hour. The Associated Press and the New York Times called the race for Westchester County Executive George Latimer before 10 p.m. Polling in the race, including one funded by consultants working against Bowman, suggested that he was heading for a loss. Bowman’s internal polling showed him leading by 1 point.

In total, outside groups spent $23 million on the race to unseat Bowman. More than 60 percent of that money came from one group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which poured more than $14 million into the race over the course of five weeks. In total, progressive groups backing Bowman spent $1.75 million on the race.

AIPAC’s spending funded ads that clogged TV spots in New York, as well as a barrage of mailers, text messages, and phone calls attacking Bowman and supporting Latimer. The expenditure — unmatched by any other single outside group spending on Democratic primaries this cycle and historically unprecedented — has turned the race into a referendum on the power of the pro-Israel lobby to oust progressives critical of Israel’s human rights abuses from Congress.

Related

Outside Groups Spent $285,000 Backing Jamaal Bowman. AIPAC Alone Just Dropped Nearly $2 Million to Attack Him.

Earlier on Tuesday, mainstream outlets were quick to chalk up Bowman’s impending loss to a series of gaffes and growing unpopularity in the District starting with the infamous moment last year when he pulled a fire alarm during congressional votes. For whatever criticisms Bowman has faced, Latimer had his own share throughout the primary. But Bowman’s missteps were no match for the unprecedented outside spending on the race from a single-issue lobbying group in a year when he broke with party leaders to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. That AIPAC only targeted Bowman because he was particularly vulnerable is partially true, but he had also won a primary just four years earlier against a 30-year incumbent, former Rep. Eliot Engel, who, like Latimer, also had major support from the pro-Israel lobby and Republican donors. In that cycle, Bowman’s stance on policy toward Israel was more complicated, and the district lines had favored his campaign.

AIPAC encouraged Latimer to run against Bowman and helped funnel Republican money into his campaign as part of its plan to spend $100 million to oust members of the Squad who led calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

After AIPAC failed to recruit its preferred candidates to challenge Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., and challengers against other Squad members failed to pick up steam, AIPAC shifted its focus to propelling challengers against Bowman and Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. 

AIPAC has spent just over $2 million so far on the race against Bush and is backing her opponent, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell.

Bowman’s race is the biggest test yet of AIPAC’s new strategy. The group shifted its priorities from lobbying Congress to spending directly on campaigns by launching a political action committee and a super PAC in 2021. 

Other groups in AIPAC’s orbit have joined its electoral push. Democratic Majority for Israel, a group that shares donors and other ties with AIPAC, has spent just over $1 million on the race against Bowman.

The influx of AIPAC election spending has shifted the electoral calculus of the Democratic Party. Historically, Democrats took drastic measures to protect incumbents from primary challenges, but party leaders have done little to support progressive incumbents facing an onslaught of attacks from AIPAC and its allies. 

What changed? In the past, party leaders went all in to protect their own against progressive insurgents.

During the 2018 cycle, Democrats blacklisted campaign vendors who worked with progressive primary challengers. When several incumbents faced challengers from their left last cycle, House Democratic leaders, including Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., launched a new political action committee to back their members. And a new dark-money group cropped up to help the cause. 

Party leaders have been active in fighting off progressive challengers. Jeffries has campaigned around the country alongside incumbents facing challengers from their left. 

As leading pro-Israel lobbying groups poured millions into the race to oust Bowman, however, Democratic leaders have been less unified in their outspoken support for incumbents than in previous cycles.

Jeffries has not appeared on the campaign circuit with Bowman, even though both members represent districts in New York. Jeffries endorsed Bowman in March, and his leadership PAC gave $5,000 to Bowman’s campaign in December. He recorded a robocall for Bowman’s campaign in the days before the primary. (Jeffries’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

Asked last year what he and other Democratic leaders would do to protect incumbents facing attacks from AIPAC and groups like Democratic Majority for Israel and Mainstream Democrats PAC, Jeffries responded briefly: “Outside groups are gonna do what outside groups are gonna do. I think House Democrats are going to continue to support each other.”

Another difference from the time when Democrats would rally aggressively around incumbents is that this time, the group funding the primary challenge is also funding and endorsing Democratic leaders who have endorsed Bowman. Democrats, especially the party’s heavy hitters, have long had close relationships with AIPAC, speaking at its annual conferences and leading its sponsored junkets to Israel. Since AIPAC started giving directly to candidates last cycle, Jeffries has received more than $1.5 million from its PAC and been endorsed by the group.

That leaves figures like Jeffries, as well as the next top two Democratic House leaders, both endorsing Bowman and accepting millions of dollars from the group funding his ouster. Jeffries; House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass.; and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., have taken more than $3 million from AIPAC’s PAC since 2021. Two other AIPAC-backed members in New York, Reps. Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clarke, have endorsed Bowman. Meeks has received just under $800,000 from AIPAC’s PAC since 2021, and Clarke has received just under $48,000. (Spokespersons for Clark, Aguilar, Meeks, and Clarke did not respond to requests for comment.)

AIPAC has given millions more to other Democratic leaders who have similarly built a reputation for protecting incumbents. When Jeffries launched a political action committee to protect members in 2021, he did it alongside Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who has received more than $1.6 million from AIPAC’s PAC since 2021. 

On Monday, Gottheimer endorsed Latimer. 

Update: June 25, 2024, 10:09 p.m. ET
This story has been updated to include news of Bowman’s defeat.

The post Half-Hearted Efforts by Democratic Leaders Couldn’t Save Jamaal Bowman From AIPAC’s Attacks appeared first on The Intercept.

News outlets gave daily coverage to Columbia University after administrators called in the New York City Police Department to arrest the student protesters. There was comparatively little attention to another savage crackdown just uptown at the City College of New York, even though students at the working-class public university received harsher charges than those at the Ivy League school.

Across the country, in another coastal megacity, media fixated on an attack by supporters of Israel against a student protest at University of California, Los Angeles, a school considered a top-flight “public Ivy.”

Student demonstrators held protests for Gaza in 11 out of 13 states in the Appalachian region, as well as in every state in the Rust Belt.

A narrative took hold that fueled efforts by critics to discredit protests by claiming that their student leaders are privileged, out of touch, and in it for themselves.

For all the media attention focused on the coasts, though, mainstream media largely ignored the protests that swept campuses across the Rust Belt and into Appalachia, where students from working- and middle-class backgrounds have led protests at the University of Pittsburgh, Case Western Reserve University, and Ohio State University.

Student demonstrators held protests for Gaza in 11 out of 13 states in the Appalachian region, as well as in every state in the Rust Belt. Hundreds of the more than 2,900 student protesters arrested since the encampments started this spring hailed from inland schools.

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“You do wonder what you would’ve done during certain parts of history, especially when it’s something that doesn’t impact you directly,” said one student at Case Western in Cleveland, Ohio. “I think that this is my time to challenge myself to think about what I would do. And that’s what I’m doing now.”

The focus on elite, coastal universities has overshadowed the breadth of the brutal police crackdowns and impunity for attacks on pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Police deployed militarized tanks and riot gear against students at some of the more than 50 schools that saw raids. Demonstrators were were tasered, thrown down stairs, and left with broken limbs and teeth.

Protesters and professors at schools like Arizona State, University of Georgia, and the University of Texas at Austin were tackled, pepper sprayed, and shot with rubber bullets. Police fired a gun inside a building at Columbia, and cops stood back while the pro-Israel protesters launched fireworks into the encampment at UCLA.

Legal advocates have also documented disparities in the treatment of students at different campuses, as in the cases of City College and Columbia.

Violence against students in Rust Belt states has gone largely unrecognized.

Contractors hired to paint over a pro-Palestine mural at Case Western Reserve sprayed paint directly onto student protesters who tried to block them from covering the mural. University President Eric Kaler said that demonstrators had added antisemitic language to protest art on campus and that the contractors were directed to paint them over. (Kaler apologized for the incident and said the university would investigate.)

At Ohio State, police attacked a crowd of protesters during a Muslim prayer at the Gaza encampment and reportedly choked and pushed students, trying to rip off some of the students’ hijabs.

“Instead of defending my thesis this week, I spent it in the ER with a severe concussion,” said a protester at OSU. “We have been traumatized as a community by OSU PD, who called in state troopers on their students.”

Critics of campus protests, including university administrators, have justified the police crackdowns by claiming that demonstrators have protested in a manner that violates student codes of conduct and created an environment that makes campus unsafe for students who are Jewish or pro-Israel.

Those claims ignore the violence police and counterprotesters leveled against students — and the backgrounds of the students themselves. At coastal and inland universities alike, Jewish students have played a significant role at the Gaza encampments.

“The media is absolutely wrong about who’s here and what we’re doing. I think there’s more Jewish students on these campuses than people think,” said another student protester at Case Western. “It’s really dissonant for me as a Jewish person. It makes me feel unsafe that Israel is conflated with my Jewish identity. That’s what makes me feel unsafe.”

The post Not Just Coastal Elites: Here’s How Three Rust Belt Colleges Protested Israel’s War in Gaza appeared first on The Intercept.

The battalion is also notorious for its alleged abuses of Palestinians and human rights violations in the West Bank, including an incident that led to the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man in 2022. These allegations landed the group, formally known as the Nahal Haredi, on a short list of IDF units that Secretary of State Antony Blinken intended to sanction last month. That move would have cut off the battalion’s supply of U.S. weapons and other military aid — until the Biden administration backed away from those plans under pressure from Israeli officials.

But the battalion has another reliable source of international support: a charitable nonprofit in the U.S.

The man leading that organization, which has funneled millions to the IDF group in recent years, is also a donor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, which is running a multimillion-dollar campaign to oust critics of Israel’s human rights abuses from Congress and install stalwart pro-Israel allies in their place.

“It’s absolutely incomprehensible that we provide tax write-offs to American citizens who use their funds to support groups and activities that are clear violators of human rights and violators of what is essentially American policy,” said Jim Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute. “And now, some of the very groups that we are holding up as sanctionable for their human rights behavior similarly are getting tax write-offs. It’s simply something that ought to end.”

The Biden administration was considering sanctioning Netzah Yehuda under the Leahy Laws, which are intended to stop the country from funding, supplying, or training security forces credibly accused of human rights abuses. State Department staffers sent Blinken a report earlier this year recommending that the battalion be sanctioned in order to disqualify it from receiving U.S. aid, according to ProPublica reporting. After making noises that he intended to follow up on the recommendations, the State Department ultimately backed down in response to pressure from Israeli officials.

Those sanctions would only apply to military aid. The government has the power to impose separate economic sanctions on foreign violators of human rights but has similarly declined to act in the case of this battalion.

Friends of Nahal Haredi, the U.S. nonprofit that supports the battalion, is led by a man named Stephen Rosedale, the founder and chairman of a company that operates more than 100 long-term care, medical rehab, and other healthcare facilities across seven states. Rosedale, a registered Republican, has given a total of $33,500 to AIPAC and its affiliated political action committees this cycle, including $25,000 to AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, and $10,500 to AIPAC’s regular PAC. Rosedale is also backing the challengers picked by AIPAC to oust Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., in its plan to unseat the Squad. Rosedale has also given at least half a million dollars to various U.S. political campaigns since 2009. 

Rosedale, Friends of Nahal Haredi, and the United Democracy Project did not respond to requests for comment.

“We know that AIPAC’s primary role is to prevent any accountability for the Israeli government and military,” said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, a Jewish advocacy group. “So it’s not surprising that their donors are also backing IDF battalions with scores of documented human rights violations.” 

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Netzah Yehuda’s alleged human rights violations include leaving a 78-year-old Palestinian American man detained during a raid in the West Bank outside overnight before he died of cardiac arrest. The man, Omar As’ad, was a U.S. citizen and had previously lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Israeli officials dismissed two battalion officers after As’ad died but said it was not possible to determine whether their conduct caused his death. The State Department said it was “deeply concerned” by the circumstances of As’ad’s death and called for a thorough criminal investigation. No one was ultimately prosecuted for As’ad’s death.

“The question here is really for the Democratic Party,” Borgwardt said. “Are they going to side with the majority of Americans who want a ceasefire and conditions on weapons to Israel? Or are they going to side with AIPAC and its unconditional backing of Netanyahu’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza?”

AIPAC’s efforts to silence critics of Israel in Congress should make the group as repulsive to Democrats as the National Rifle Association, Borgwardt said. “Why are we not treating AIPAC like the NRA when we know it’s funded by people who also support weapons sales with zero accountability for civilian deaths including those of thousands of children?” 

Rosedale’s support for AIPAC’s super PAC is his largest campaign contribution so far this year, and more than double the rest of the contributions he’s made since January. In March, Rosedale gave $1,000 to the campaign for Westchester County Executive George Latimer, whom AIPAC recruited last year to challenge Bowman. Rosedale also gave $2,000 to Wesley Bell, who AIPAC endorsed against Bush. In 2022, Rosedale gave $50,000 to AIPAC’s super PAC and $6,000 to its regular PAC.

Rosedale has given mostly to Democrats in recent years, including regular contributions to state Democratic parties. He gave this year to state Democratic parties in Maine, Wisconsin, Montana, and Delaware. Since January, he’s given to several other candidates backed by the pro-Israel lobby including $1,000 each in January to Reps. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. Combined, Brown and Torres have taken close to $1 million from AIPAC since 2022. Across the aisle, Rosedale gave $4,000 to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in December.

AIPAC is expected to spend up to $20 million in each upcoming primary against Bowman and Bush. AIPAC recruited Latimer, Bowman’s challenger, and has endorsed both him and Bell, Bush’s opponent. AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, dropped close to $2 million in the last week on ads attacking Bowman. AIPAC has bundled almost a quarter of Latimer’s total contributions so far, including almost half of his contributions in the final quarter of 2023. Both Latimer and Bell have faced criticism for taking money from Republican donors seeking to oust progressives in Democratic primaries.

AIPAC had planned to spend $100 million this cycle to oust Squad members critical of U.S. military aid for Israel. But as several Squad members have shored up their support and held steady on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, AIPAC has shifted its strategy to focus instead on ousting Bowman and Bush, whom the group determined were the most vulnerable. After failing to recruit two potential challengers to run against Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., AIPAC ended up not spending on her race. Lee won her May primary against challenger Bhavini Patel by more than 20 percentage points. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have far outraised their current challengers.

The post This AIPAC Donor Funnels Millions to an IDF Unit Accused of Violating Human Rights appeared first on The Intercept.

United Democracy Project, the AIPAC super PAC, bought its first set of ads this week for $1.9 million, disclosing that it planned to spend the money in a week, to oppose Bowman in the race against Westchester County executive George Latimer. The primary election takes place June 25.

Latimer, who was recruited to run by AIPAC and has received huge contributions directly from the group, has had nearly a million dollars of support from outside groups before AIPAC weighed in. Bowman also has outside support, but it’s a fraction of AIPAC’s spending so far for Latimer. Known as “independent expenditures,” outside groups can weigh in on elections but not in coordination with campaigns. 

With the new AIPAC money to attack Bowman, outside groups in the race are spending nearly 10 times more in Latimer’s favor — with roughly $3 million total for Latimer and against Bowman, and Bowman supporters spending only about $285,000. 

Latimer is also raking in more cash than Bowman in direct campaign contributions. His campaign itself has raised $3.6 million so far to Bowman’s $2.7 million. Latimer’s haul includes major support from Republican donors — almost a quarter of it was bundled by AIPAC. In the last quarter of 2023, almost half of Latimer’s contributions came through AIPAC. 

“NY-16 Democrats are united in rejecting MAGA’s threat to our freedoms, which is why Trump Republicans are funding a $1.9 million ad spend to distract us from their attempt to buy our seat,” Bowman campaign spokesperson Lawrence Wang said in a statement to The Intercept. “But voters know the truth: if MAGA’s top priority is unseating Jamaal Bowman, ours is to re-elect him.”

United Democracy Project did not respond to a request for comment.

Latimer has courted Republican donors and held fundraisers hosted by Republicans, including a major GOP donor to former President Donald Trump. Another AIPAC donor has been encouraging Republicans to switch parties to vote against Bowman in the primary — one Republican voter told The Intercept he recently switched parties just to vote for Latimer. Latimer’s campaign distanced itself from the GOP-hosted fundraisers and said he had no control over who hosted fundraising events.

The big outside spending push by AIPAC helps cement its status as one of if not the biggest spender in Democratic Party primaries. The pro-Israel lobby planned to spend $100 million this cycle to oust members of the Squad who have been critical of U.S. military funding for Israel and led calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

After failing to unseat Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., AIPAC’s next top targets are Bowman and Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. AIPAC recruited Latimer to run against Bowman and has backed Bush’s challenger, Wesley Bell. Its super PAC is expected to spend up to $20 million on each race. 

Known as “independent expenditures,” outside groups like PACs can spend unlimited amounts on elections but are not supposed to coordinate with campaigns. In practical terms, however, a system of winks and nods can help campaigns point outside spenders to ideas about messaging — a tactic AIPAC has availed itself of.

AIPAC’s Primary Occupation

The race between Bowman and Latimer has been a chaotic one. Latimer’s campaign came under scrutiny when it first launched for leaving the Bronx, part of which is in the district, off of his website and only mentioning Westchester County, which is a primarily white suburb. Latimer was also criticized for comments claiming that Bowman took money from Hamas. Latimer told City & State that he wouldn’t be able to win if more Bronx voters were drawn in as part of redistricting. 

Bowman has had his own share of snafus. His decision to pull the fire alarm in Congress over the summer has plagued the campaign and become fodder in new attack ads. Critics have also raised questions about conspiratorial content he follows on YouTube, though it’s unclear whether he has watched or engaged with the videos. 

In a Twitter thread posted Thursday, Lee, the Pennsylvania representative who just won her primary, criticized AIPAC for targeting Black Democrats while using its support for members of the Congressional Black Caucus as cover. “While the biggest threat to Black America is white supremacist policymakers, they financially support the folks causing us the most harm,” Lee wrote. 

AIPAC supported several candidates of color last cycle, including Glenn Ivey, Adam Hollier, Henry Cuellar, Shontel Brown, Valerie Foushee, and Don Davis. Almost all of AIPAC’s independent expenditures against Democrats in the 2022 primaries were spent against candidates of color. The rest was spent against former Rep. Andy Levin, a Jewish member of Congress. 

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which spent at least $165,000 on mail and digital ads supporting Bowman and attacking Latimer’s GOP ties, said that Republicans were using United Democracy Project to target Democrats of color. The Working Families Party has spent $118,000 so far to support Bowman, with plans for additional spending. 

“This is the same tactic we’ve seen across the country, Republican billionaires using AIPAC’s super PAC to spend millions of dollars targeting Democrats of color in Democratic primaries,” Andrabi said. “Voters should know that every ad they see attacking Jamaal Bowman or defending George Latimer is being funded by the same GOP megadonors who want to ban abortion, defend insurrectionists, and elect Donald Trump.”

The post Outside Groups Spent $285,000 Backing Jamaal Bowman. AIPAC Alone Just Dropped Nearly $2 Million to Attack Him. appeared first on The Intercept.

After the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the landmark case Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, many Republican dominated state governments quickly moved to ban all or some abortions. Many of the populous cities in these state, however, are dominated by Democratic Party politics. In those cities, elected prosecutors pledged not to prosecute reproductive care, setting up a clash with state-level governments. 

The clash came first in Florida, where in 2022, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis became the first state official to suspended an elected prosecutor who said they would not charge people who sought abortions. In January, a three-judge federal appeals circuit panel said DeSantis’s decision to suspend Former States Attorney Andrew Warren violated First Amendment provisions for protected speech, including Warren’s comments on protecting abortion and transgender care.  

“Those prosecutors who have recognized that they have no place interfering with patients’ personal decisions have found themselves under threat.”

Since then, at least five states have introduced legislative measures to strip power from elected prosecutors who have made similar pledges. Over the last two years, Republicans in Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, South Carolina, and Texas have introduced or passed legislation making it easier to prosecute people who seek abortions. 

“As reproductive health care became criminalized in the wake of Dobbs, prosecutors around the country became a front line for this essential right,” said Jill Habig, founder and CEO of the the Public Rights Project. “Those prosecutors who have recognized that they have no place interfering with patients’ personal decisions have found themselves under threat for that decision.” 

On Thursday, the Public Rights Project and Local Solutions Support Center released a report tallying and detailing a wave of new attacks against prosecutors vowing to defend abortion rights. The attacks target democratically elected prosecutors for routine speech about practices in their offices. In Florida, Warren was suspended in part because of his statements on the right to abortion. In Texas, lawmakers who launched a petition to remove Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza also cited his pledge not to prosecute abortion care.

The new research by Public Rights Project shows that the salvos against supporters of abortion rights are just part of a growing, nationwide right-wing effort to limit the powers of elected, reform-minded prosecutors. Since early 2023, there have been 53 attempts to restrict prosecutorial authority in 26 states — attempts that are increasingly effective, with 15 new measures enacted in the same time period.

Idaho, Georgia, and More

The recent pushes to strip power from prosecutors who support abortion rights have seen some successes. In Idaho, if an elected prosecutor has a policy in place not to prosecute violations of the state’s abortion ban, a law enacted last year would give the state attorney general power to take over any related cases.

A similar bill was proposed in South Carolina last year but died in committee. 

In Texas, at least four bills would create new and severe criminal offenses for abortion care and give the state attorney general power to bring criminal prosecutions and sue over related cases.

A Georgia law enacted last year gives a politically-appointed commission the power to remove and discipline elected DAs over decisions not to prosecute certain offenses, including abortions. 

Other states have fought to curb the attacks on abortion care. A proposed bill in Wisconsin would give the state attorney general concurrent jurisdiction to take over certain prosecutions that target people who seek abortions under the state’s law prohibiting abortions from 22 weeks. 

In Arizona, state officials are deliberating on efforts to block the repeal of an 1800s-era abortion ban. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs issued an executive order in 2023 giving all duties related to prosecuting abortion care over to the state attorney general, a Democrat who supports protecting the right to abortion.

Tons of New Bills to Curb DAs

The anti-abortion measures are the outgrowth of a broader national attack on elected prosecutors who ran on reform policies. National Republicans have fomented and harnessed a backlash to candidates who ran on ending cash bail, declining to prosecute cannabis possession, overturning wrongful convictions and prosecuting police misconduct.

Last year, the Public Rights Project and Local Solutions Support Center released a report that outlined efforts to curb the power of reform-minded prosecutors. The research released about restricting prosecutors who vow to defend abortion rights was part of a new paper that updated last year’s tally.

More than 37 bills to strip power from prosecutors were introduced in 17 states between 2017 and early 2023. Some singled out reform-minded DAs elected in places like Philadelphia and St. Louis. 

Since then, the new research showed, the numbers ballooned to 53 attempts introduced in 26 states. Texas is home to at least 13 such efforts, including bills that further criminalize abortion and make it easier to file complaints against and investigate DAs who decline to prosecute certain offenses. 

While the bulk of legislation introduced between 2017 and 2022 didn’t pass, newer bills have been more successful. Fifteen new measures have been enacted in 14 states since last year. 

Texas enacted a law last year that makes it easier to bring private lawsuits to remove prosecutors, Habig added. Now the state is following the example set by Georgia and considering creating a new government agency for the same purpose.

“The bills introduced and passed in the last year show that the trend from 2017-22 has not stopped — in fact, it’s only accelerating,” Habig said. “And states that have taken some efforts to restrict prosecutorial discretion have shown that they are not satisfied with their early steps.”

The post Republicans Can’t Decide: Do They Hate Prosecutors Because of Bail Reform or Abortion? appeared first on The Intercept.

Neither Dunn nor his rival, state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, has been particularly outspoken in support of or against Israel, raising the question of why AIPAC is involved in the race at all. 

In the last month, AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has poured $4.1 million into the race to support Elfreth. Some 20 candidates are running for the open seat in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District, where incumbent Rep. John Sarbanes announced in October he would not seek reelection. Dunn and Elfreth are leading fundraising.

In individual campaign contributions, Dunn has outraised Elfreth almost 4 to 1, with $4.5 million to her $1.4 million. But considering the outside boost from AIPAC, the group has given Elreth’s campaign a significant leg up: The pro-Israel group’s super PAC has spent almost as much as Dunn has raised. Elfreth has distanced herself from AIPAC’s support and said she was unaware that the group’s super PAC would be spending on her behalf. 

Elfreth’s campaign is also getting support from at least 12 donors who’ve given between $1,000 and $6,600 who have also given major support to far-right Republicans including former President Donald Trump, according to campaign filings reviewed by The Intercept. At least five of the donors are registered Republicans. 

More than 100 of Elfreth’s donors have also given significant amounts to AIPAC’s political action committees. In total, donors to Elfreth have given more than $2.8 million to those PACs. 

Dunn’s campaign released an ad last week criticizing Elfreth and claiming she’s aligned with far-right Republicans. Donors to Elfreth’s campaign include Larry Mizel, the former Colorado finance chair for Trump’s 2016 campaign; real estate developer Robert Sarver; former AIPAC President Edward Levy; and Daniel Kraft, president of Kraft Group International and the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Several of the donors have given to Republicans including Trump, Nikki Haley, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla.; Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

In a statement to The Intercept, Dunn criticized Elfreth’s campaign for accepting money from AIPAC’s super PAC and called on other candidates to condemn the outside spending, which he said was dark money “bankrolled by MAGA Republicans.” Taking the money in effect condones AIPAC’s actions, Dunn said, which include endorsing more than 100 candidates who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

“Any candidate who receives this support refuses to condemn their meddling in this race and essentially accepts the endorsement of an organization that has backed over 100 candidates and members of Congress who incited the rioters I fought on January 6th and tried to overthrow our democracy,” Dunn said. “Right after I announced my plan to protect our democracy from outside special interests who try to influence elections, dark money was solicited into this race.”

Elfreth’s campaign recently removed from its website a red box: a common campaign tactic used to encourage outside spending on races without violating rules prohibiting campaigns from coordinating with super PACs. The red box provides material that outside PACs can use in their communications. Elfreth had previously acknowledged the red box and said that a teacher’s union might use it to support her, according to the nonprofit news site Maryland Reporter. 

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It’s not clear what drew AIPAC into the race. At a forum in April, both candidates offered support for efforts by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to condition aid to Israel. Dunn himself has been supportive of Israel and has said the country has a right to defend itself. He has supported sending U.S. funding to Israel and increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Dunn has not been outspoken against human rights abuses by Israel or U.S. military aid. And Elfreth is not running a particularly pro-Israel campaign. 

A United Democracy Project spokesperson told Jewish Insider the group was not concerned about Dunn’s position on Israel, but that it was spending on the race to ensure Elfreth won out over other candidates in the race it described as “anti-Israel.”

The super PAC said it was supporting Elfreth because of her position on other issues like the right to abortion, climate change, and domestic violence. Dunn is campaigning on a similar platform, emphasizing the right to abortion, strengthening voting rights, environmental protection, and working toward Medicare for All. 

United Democracy Project has not run negative ads against Dunn. 

Neither Elfreth’s campaign nor the United Democracy Project responded to a request for comment.

The post Neither Candidate Has Much to Say About Israel. So Why Is AIPAC Pouring Money Into This Race? appeared first on The Intercept.

“When someone tells you they are aiding and abetting terrorists — believe them.” That’s the opening line the suit filed Wednesday against the Palestinian advocacy groups American Muslims for Palestine and National Students for Justice in Palestine, the umbrella group supporting student organizers for Palestine, which supports more than 350 Palestine solidarity groups, including more than 200 campus organizations across the country.

The lawsuit is part of a nationwide crackdown on pro-Palestine activism, especially on campus. It was filed a day after police in New York City deployed militarized forces to remove students from campus encampments protesting the war on Gaza and arrested hundreds.

Some or all of the nine plaintiffs in the suit are involved in a raft of other civil suits related to the October 7 attacks. Among the defendants they’ve pursued in court are major media organizations and United Nations agencies.

The survivors of the October 7 attack alleged that American Muslims for Palestine “serves as Hamas’s propaganda division in the United States.” 

“Through NSJP, AMP uses propaganda to intimidate, convince, and recruit uninformed, misguided, and impressionable college students to serve as foot soldiers for Hamas on campus and beyond,” the October 7 survivors wrote in their suit.

The lawsuits rely on anti-terrorism laws that made it possible to bring civil cases for acts of international terrorism, including provisions around bans on material support to terrorism that have long been controversially applied. At the time of their passage, members of Congress who pushed the anti-terror laws linked them directly to crackdowns on pro-Palestine activities, according to a recent white paper from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Palestine Legal.

“For years, CCR and others have been warning of the abuse of broad ‘material support’ laws to shrink the space for Palestinian rights,” said Diala Shamas, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

The group represented another Palestinian rights organization in what Shamas said was “years-long, meritless litigation” brought by the Jewish National Fund, a group that funds Israeli settlements.

“The law’s provision of civil damages means that private actors — including those with seemingly endless resources — can bog you down in costly and distracting litigation,” Shamas said. “This means that Palestinians and those who support their rights become ‘high risk’ — and those who they rely on — charities, funders, banks or social media companies — are chilled from further engagement. The goal is to isolate Palestinians.”

Four Survivor Lawsuits

The nine plaintiffs include six survivors of the October 7 Hamas attacks. Five people attended the Supernova music festival, and another was attacked at Zikim Beach, where 19 civilians were killed as Hamas militants tried to overrun nearby military outposts.

Two other plaintiffs who were not home on October 7 had homes in Kibbutz Holit, the site of additional Hamas attacks. Another plaintiff’s brother was killed at the festival. (Lawyers for the plaintiffs, AMP, and SJP did not respond to requests for comment.)

The AMP suit is the fourth federal suit filed this year by members of the group.

Last month, eight of the same plaintiffs sued the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, claiming that it gave material support to Hamas by allowing the militant group to fundraise on the platform. In November, the Treasury Department said Hamas and “a range of illicit actors” had used Binance to funnel money to their groups. Binance lawyers asked for an extension to reply to the complaint and have until August to do so. In April, the company’s former chief executive was sentenced to four months in prison after pleading guilty to money laundering violations.

Five of the plaintiffs in the American Muslims for Palestine suit also sued the news agency The Associated Press in February. The plaintiffs alleged that the AP used photographs from “known Hamas associates who were gleefully embedded with the Hamas terrorists during the October 7th attacks.” Lawyers for the AP moved to dismiss the complaint for failing to state a claim and asked to stay discovery pending adjudication of the motion to dismiss.

In March, the same group of nine plus another October 7 survivor sued the U.S. committee of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNWRA, the largest humanitarian organization operating in Gaza. The suit against UNRWA claims that the group “financed and aided” Hamas, a frequent refrain from Israeli officials that has gone unsubstantiated, according to an independent review released in April. UNRWA lawyers were granted an extension and have until May 28 to respond to the complaint.

Following Israeli officials’ allegations, major donors initially cut funding to UNRWA, but later reversed the decisions — except for the United States, the group’s biggest donor, where Congress blocked funding as part of the budget package approved this spring.

The major corporate law firm Greenberg Traurig has taken on the latest case. The National Jewish Advocacy Center has taken on the three other cases. The group did not respond to a request for comment. 

Crackdown on Student Groups

Student advocates for Palestine have faced concerted and sometimes violent crackdowns by school administrators and police. Mainstream media outlets uncritically repeat unsubstantiated claims that they support Hamas.

Students for Justice in Palestine chapters, which are at the center of much campus organizing, have faced harsh censorship since October. The group was singled out in congressional hearings that have pressured university administrators to further crack down on Palestinian advocacy on campus.

Columbia University suspended its SJP chapter and its chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace in November. The New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal sued the university over the suspension in March in the New York Supreme Court. The case is pending.

American University placed its SJP chapter on probation in April after the group held a silent indoor demonstration; the school banned indoor protests in January. Rutgers University suspended the SJP chapter on its New Brunswick campus in December and claimed that the group had protested in “nonpublic forums” and caused disruption on campus; the suspension was lifted in January. (I am a co-teacher of a class at Rutgers.)

George Washington University suspended its SJP chapter in November after the group projected statements onto a library building calling for the university to divest from Israel. The projected images said GWU had blood on its hands and used the phrase “Glory to our martyrs,” a cultural reference to any Palestinian killed by Israel that was interpreted by outsiders as an endorsement of Hamas.

Brandeis was the first private university to ban its SJP chapter in November, claiming that the group “openly supports Hamas.”

State-level Republican officials have also taken steps to legalize the suppression of SJP. In March, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order targeting campus activism, calling on all the state’s higher education institutions to “review and update free speech policies” to address antisemitism. The order defined the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic and linked the use of the widely adopted phrase to Hamas.

And in October, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered colleges to shut down all SJP chapters. The University of Florida SJP chapter sued DeSantis in November and said the governor’s order was a violation of free speech. A federal court denied the chapter’s request for a preliminary injunction in January and found that Florida officials did not intend to deactivate all SJP chapters after comments by the Florida University System chancellor walking back DeSantis’s order.

In October, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares opened an investigation into AMP and said his office had reason to believe that the organization was soliciting contributions without proper registration. Miyares, a Republican, had also called on state law enforcement agencies to donate tactical gear to Israeli citizens.

Last week, Congress adopted a resolution that would further chill speech from organizations like SJP. The resolution employs a controversial definition of antisemitism that includes any attempts to draw comparisons between the actions of the Israeli government and Nazis. The House voted 320 to 91 to adopt the working definition of antisemitism published in 2016 by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance. The lead author of the definition has said it “was never intended to be a campus hate speech code.”

The post October 7 Survivors Sue Campus Protesters, Say Students Are “Hamas’s Propaganda Division” appeared first on The Intercept.

Other students reported that they were beaten by New York City Police Department officers after their arrests and taken to the hospital for injuries before being returned to central booking. Photos of the injuries were provided to The Intercept.

Police arrested 282 protesters at Columbia University and the City College of New York. According to the professors, they ended up at one of two jails downtown: NYPD headquarters or the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse.

“The conditions we’re hearing about are inhumane. They take away the dignity of every person in there.”

Students arrested during the crackdown said at least two of them were put in solitary confinement for three hours and others reported much longer stays, according to Barnard College professor Shayoni Mitra and a tenured faculty member who asked for anonymity to protect their livelihood. The faculty members were working to support jailed students. (The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

Other students reported that they were held in mouse-infested cells, along with the general population of the jail. The students told the professors that they weren’t given water or food for 16 hours and that at least one student was left without shoes for the same period of time.

“The conditions we’re hearing about are inhumane,” Mitra told The Intercept. “They take away the dignity of every person in there.”

Police forces and state troopers raided university protests at dozens of campuses across the country last week. Nationwide, police have arrested more than 2,500 people, according to an arrest tracker from The Appeal.

On Monday, Columbia University canceled its main graduation ceremony citing security concerns and discussions with students. The university said it would only hold smaller celebrations for individual schools.

The Legal Aid Society, a public defense organization in New York City, called on the city’s Department of Investigation to probe at least 46 cases in which protesters were “unlawfully jailed” for low-level charges, the New York Daily News reported.

Mitra, the Barnard professor who was doing support for jailed students, said the arrests arose because of the false portrayal — pushed by the NYPD, top officials, and news media — that the protests are being organized by outside forces. New York City Mayor Eric Adams said he approved the police raids after he saw a days-old photo on social media of an “outside agitator” who turned out to be a retired school teacher and grandmother.

“We have to push back really hard on this narrative that there are outside agitators and they’re treated differently than students,” Mitra told The Intercept.

After students occupied Hamilton Hall, Columbia University closed the building at midnight on April 30 and didn’t reopen it. “So anyone who is in that building is a trespasser,” Mitra said. “According to the university, everybody in that building was an outside agitator.”

During its raid, the NYPD restricted access to campus for medics, legal observers, and journalists, in what Mitra described as a “clinical” effort to stop people from documenting the raids.

“Nobody deserves to be arrested without legal observers, medical staff and other media present. And that’s what happened,” she said.

Mitra added that students at Columbia received lighter charges than student arrested at City College, which is part of the public City University of New York system (where I am enrolled at the Graduate Center). City and State confirmed the disparities in charges in a report over the weekend. At least 46 protesters arrested at Columbia were charged with trespassing. Twenty-two protesters at City College were charged with burglary.

The jailed students said getting information about their arrests was slow going.

“They said that was the most difficult part, just being alone,” said the tenured faculty member Barnard who supported the students. “Not knowing how much time had passed, not knowing what was happening and not getting any information. That was probably the most shocking thing.”

In the letter sent Monday to the city Department of Investigation, Legal Aid said it supported a request from City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams that the agency investigate the NYPD’s use of official social media accounts to claim that protests were linked to terrorism.

“We write to support [Adams’s] request that your office investigate the NYPD’s improper use of their social media accounts,” Legal Aid wrote, “particularly their use of social media to discredit protesters and chill future protests by making speculative claims linking them to terrorism — a clear abuse of the NYPD’s authority.”

The post After Raids, NYPD Denied Student Protesters Water and Food in Jail appeared first on The Intercept.

No Labels promoted the Wednesday event as a “special Zoom call” with “the leading voices in their parties” opposing student protests against the war in Gaza, which spread to more than 150 campuses in the last two weeks.

The bipartisan pair praised the responses of universities that have called on police to violently quell protests and promised that Congress would be doing more to investigate the student movements, according to a recording of the meeting obtained by The Intercept. The lawmakers and university board of trustee members repeatedly claimed that nefarious outside actors are funding and organizing the encampments on university campuses. 

Gottheimer said that he had been in touch with officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation about campus protests. “Based on my conversations with the FBI — there’s activity I can’t get into, you know, given my committee responsibilities, I can’t get into more specifics — but I can just say that I think people are well aware this is an issue,“ said Gottheimer, who is on the House Intelligence Committee. 

“I can’t speak for the local FBI field offices, but it’s got to be all hands on deck,” he added. “I believe following the money is the key. Gotta follow the money. A lot of these universities are not transparent at all, remotely, about where the money comes from, you know, they just, they want it — and that has to be a big part of this.” 

This week, House Republicans said they would investigate federal funding for universities that held campus protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced the plans on Tuesday alongside the chairs of six congressional committees. 

Gottheimer and Lawler have been at the forefront of congressional efforts to defend Israel amid its brutal war on Gaza. They led bipartisan efforts to silence criticism of Israel and to protect Israel from being held accountable for using the billions of dollars it receives from the United States in violation of international law. 

Gottheimer, Lawler, and No Labels did not respond to requests for comment.

Among the most prominent themes of the discussion were getting the FBI more involved in investigating American college campuses, and fears of outside agitators stoking the anti-war protests. New York University Chair Emeritus and Executive Vice Chair Bill Berkley, whose campus this week welcomed police to arrest over a dozen students, claimed that a New York City-based Palestine solidarity group had been very involved in leading protest efforts in the city and suggested that the feds should investigate.

Berkley claimed that “we have deciphered messages” that showed the group directing people to the encampment at Columbia. He also suggested that, because many of the tents at campus protests were the same, the demonstrations had been orchestrated externally. (Many prominent critics of the protest, including New York City Mayor Eric Adams, have repeated that claim. As the New York City outlet Hell Gate and others have pointed out, the tents are sold for $15 at Five Below and around $30 at Amazon and Walmart. “My God…looks like what we’ve got on our hands is a classic case of college students buying something cheap and disposable,” wrote Hell Gate.)

Berkley then asked why the FBI hadn’t yet taken action against the demonstrations. “And, by the way, the FBI and the terrorist monitoring groups know this — why haven’t we seen any action by the federal government?” He did not respond to requests for comment.

Lawler, who co-sponsored a recent bill to ban TikTok, repeated Berkley’s claims about external organizers and said that was the type of thing that inspired Congress’s efforts to ban the app. “I don’t think there’s any question that there has been a coordinated effort off these college campuses, and that you have outside paid agitators and activists,” Lawler said. “It also highlights exactly why we included the TikTok bill in the foreign supplemental aid package because you’re seeing how these kids are being manipulated by certain groups or entities or countries to foment hate on their behalf and really create a hostile environment here in the U.S.” 

Lawler added that he would look into domestic groups funding protests. Gottheimer, for his part, said demonstrations at Columbia were “potentially” led by outsiders and repeated his frequent claim that the protesters support Hamas. 

Andrew Bursky, the board chair of Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, said America’s tradition of campus protests was “a positive thing,” but that there’s a “clear dark line” between allowing free speech and condoning antisemitism. “And I think you guys in Congress have darkened that line today with this piece of legislation,” he added. Bursky did not specify what legislation he was referring to, but earlier that day, the House of Representatives passed a Republican-led bill that expanded the definition of antisemitism. 

Students had forfeited their right to protest, Bursky went on, due to “physical violence, or threats of physical violence or harassment,” among other things. He said that universities that have failed to make that line clear and as a result “have chaos and anarchy,” stating that “the only way to fix it is to bring in law enforcement.”

“The only way to fix it is to bring in law enforcement.”

Bursky did not mention the most prominent examples of physical violence on his own campus or elsewhere. When police came onto Washington University in St. Louis this week, officers beat a professor from another university, slammed him, and dragged his limp body — leaving him with several broken ribs and a broken hand. At the University of California, Los Angeles, meanwhile, a pro-Israel mob shot fireworks, sprayed mace, and hurled fists and slurs at pro-Palestine students and student journalists. 

In a statement to The Intercept, Bursky said that “any injury of any individual, protestor or a member of law enforcement, is very unfortunate and regrettable.” He also reiterated students’ right to peacefully protest, noting that those rights are constrained by “well-documented” time and place restrictions meant to ensure that university business can go on as usual. “So long as those restrictions … are respected, the freedom of members of the university community to engage in protest must and will be protected,” he wrote. “Also, to be clear, protests that decay into violence or speech that is hate speech threatening to individuals or specific groups will never be acceptable.”

On the call, Gottheimer applauded Bursky and other university leaders for bringing police to campus. “Listen, it took a while for the board of trustees of Columbia to get to the right place. They eventually got to the right place,” he said. (The night before the call, Columbia had welcomed militarized police to invade one of its campus buildings to arrest students en masse — leaving some bruised and injured. One police officer even accidentally fired a gun on campus.)

A speaker who was identified on the call as Howard Berk and said he is involved in Texas urged the members of Congress to back schools doing “a great job.” While those leaders “may have support from the top,” Berk said, “they’re getting tremendous heat, obviously, from a minority of students, and from the faculty.” The University of Texas at Austin was widely scrutinized after hordes of riot police met peaceful protesters with tear gas and flash grenades. (There is a Howard Berk on the board of the University of Texas/Texas A&M Investment Management Company; he did not respond to requests for comment.)

Berk also complained that universities were not getting support from federal agencies to investigate protests. “The FBI question is an interesting one,” Berk said. He added that he’d heard from people in Texas that the “FBI have not really been helpful.” Universities were doing their own investigations “with really no help from the feds as my understanding at this point,” he said. “So it’s important.”

Related

NYC Mayor Smeared a Grandmother as an “Outside Agitator” to Justify NYPD Assault on Columbia

Lawler applauded the response from the New York Police Department, whose counterterror unit he said was doing a good job of “finding some leads,” but said that the FBI could aid its response. “I definitely think the FBI could certainly be a little more helpful here. But again, I think Congress is going to take action,” he said.

Gottheimer agreed with Berk’s call to praise “all the right universities,” including schools in Texas and Florida “that have stepped up.” Among elite schools, he praised Princeton and Dartmouth, where the former chair of Jewish Studies was pushed down, arrested, and banned from campus for photographing protests. (The college later revoked the ban.)

Lawler and Gottheimer both visited Columbia’s campus in recent weeks to express concern for Jewish students. Neither appeared to spend time with Jewish students participating in the anti-war protests, let alone the Palestinian students who may be mourning family members killed by American bombs.

Last week, Lawler co-sponsored the “COLUMBIA Act” alongside Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., which would impose an antisemitism monitor on any college or university receiving federal funding. 

Gottheimer, meanwhile, has been among the most outspoken members of his party. He has called Democrats who don’t support Israel a “cancer” and joined efforts to pressure university presidents at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania to resign. In the days after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, Gottheimer reportedly suggested Muslim clerics are “guilty” of the attack. Gottheimer denied that he had made the comment and said his remarks were taken out of context.

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Rep. Josh Gottheimer Goes to War Against High Schoolers Protesting for Gaza

In November, he voted with Republicans to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian member of Congress. In January, Gottheimer was one of 62 Democrats to join 148 Republicans in expressing “disgust” at South Africa’s suit accusing Israel of genocide, an accusation that the International Court of Justice later found to be plausible. The New Jersey Democrat also co-led a resolution to condemn the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which the House passed in April.

One day after the call, No Labels, which spent much of the last year recruiting a spoiler candidate for the 2024 presidential election, sent out a fundraising email asking donors to max out contributions to both members of Congress. “As college campuses are gripped by anti-Israel, antisemitic protests, Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mike Lawler are showing what bipartisan leadership looks like. They are standing up against these extremist bullies — on campuses and in Congress — and deserve our support. Would you show your support by making a donation of the maximum of $6,600 to Reps. Gottheimer and Lawler today?”

The post In No Labels Call, Josh Gottheimer, Mike Lawler, and University Trustees Agree: FBI Should Investigate Campus Protests appeared first on The Intercept.