OUR TWO-TIER JUSTICE SYSTEM: How the Trump administration and congressional Republicans may crack down on pro-Palestinian protesters. Ignore the tendentious headline, which should be, “how the Trump administration may start enforcing the law.” To wit: “Biden administration officials have told NBC News that prosecuting speech-related crimes related to the anti-war protests is not a high priority for the current Justice Department, nor is seeking out student protesters on foreign visas [who violated their visas by supporting designated terrorist groups] a top concern for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” This is nuts. There is no such thing, legally speaking, as “speech-related crimes.” It’s either a crime, or it’s not. Fraud and threats are “speech-related,” but we still prosecute them.

More pointedly, every crime charged against January 6 defendants was also “speech-related,” as the underlying motivation was protesting the official election results. Basically, Biden Justice Department officials are acknowledging that they intentionally went easy on criminals who engaged in their crimes while expressing pro-Hamas, anti-Israel sentiments. As one commenter on X stated, they are admitting “that combatting antisemitic campus and street harassment of the American Jewish community was not a high priority for the outgoing administration,” nor, obviously, was excluding students who openly violating their visa terms by supporting Hamas and Hezbollah. Trump appointees will need to a do a major housecleaning.