Whistleblower says Trump’s campus antisemitism probes were used as tool, lacked evidence
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Trump administration task force created to combat antisemitism pushed for settlements with Ivy League universities despite government investigations that were rushed and incomplete or that failed to establish legal violations by the schools, a former US Justice Department lawyer alleged in a whistleblower disclosure obtained by The Associated Press.The complaint alleges that the investigations into some of the nation’s most prestigious academic institutions were designed to strong-arm the schools into cutting deals for political purposes. Outcomes of the investigations were “predetermined, without regard to the evidence” in a “politically mandated effort” to extract money from schools through settlement demands and funding freezes under the pretext of rooting out antisemitism, the complaint alleges.The work of the multi-agency task force, launched by the Justice Department under then-attorney general Pam Bondi in February 2025, was “marked by extraordinary procedural irregularities, predetermined outcomes without factual or legal support” and disregard…
A former US Justice Department lawyer, Haley Van Erem, has filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that a Trump administration task force created to combat antisemitism used investigations into Ivy League universities as a political tool. The complaint, filed with inspectors general, claims that probes into institutions like Brown, Harvard, and Columbia were rushed, incomplete, and lacked sufficient evidence to establish legal violations, yet still pushed for settlements and funding freezes. Van Erem, who left the Justice Department in May 2025, stated she was "unwilling to be made vulnerable to further participation in politically motivated investigations unsupported by facts and contrary to law." Representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat, echoed these concerns, stating that the "investigation' into antisemitism was fake, a pre-baked frame-up operation thoroughly political in nature."
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