‘A disgrace,’ legal expert says of whistleblower claim that Trump admin unserious about Jew-hatred probes

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) has launched an investigation into whistleblower allegations that Trump administration officials manipulated federal probes into antisemitism at several universities, including Harvard, Brown, and Columbia. The whistleblower, former Justice Department attorney Haley Van Erem, claims that political appointees overrode career investigators, pursued predetermined outcomes, and disregarded evidence in Title VI investigations. Van Erem alleges that "the outcomes of the investigations were predetermined, without regard to the evidence" and that hundreds of millions of dollars were suspended from universities prematurely. Lori Lowenthal Marcus, legal director for the Deborah Project, called Raskin's characterization a "hoax" and a "disgrace" to "weaponize hatred of the administration against addressing antisemitism," expressing concern that these allegations could discourage institutions from seriously addressing legitimate complaints of Jew-hatred on campuses.