State Department Admits It Detained Tufts Student Just for an Op-Ed

It’s official: ICE abducted a Tufts University student over an op-ed.

Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish Ph.D. candidate, was snatched off the street by six masked federal officers in March last year, even after the State Department had determined that the Trump administration had no evidence linking her to antisemitic activity.

The Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security Investigations alleged that by co-authoring an opinion essay in the student newspaper that demanded Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide” and divest from companies tied to Israel, Öztürk was “creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a terrorist organization.”

A State Department memo, newly unsealed Thursday, states that the Trump administration “has not provided any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in any antisemitic activity or made any public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization or antisemitism generally.”

While Öztürk had expressed support for a student resolution put forth by the now-banned group Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine, the Trump administration did not supply evidence that Öztürk was involved in “any of the activities which resulted in TJSP being suspended from Tufts.”

Öztürk’s apparent kidnapping was part of a spate of arrests of foreign-born academics who had merely expressed support for Palestinians. If cruelty is the message of the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigrants and free speech, then Öztürk’s arrest was part of the opening salvo.

In May, a federal judge ordered that Öztürk be released from federal custody “immediately,” as she had made “substantial claims” that her constitutional rights had been violated. “Her continued detention chills the speech of the millions and millions of people who are not citizens,” U.S. District Judge William Sessions said at the time.

Kash Patel is firing senior agents and directors at the FBI with connections to investigations into Donald Trump.

MS NOW reports that the FBI has removed the special agent in charge in Atlanta, the acting assistant director of New York’s field office, and up to six agents in Miami who were involved in the bureau’s search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in 2022. Other agents who were involved in investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election have also lost their jobs.

Firing employees en masse was previously unheard of at the FBI, which has a reputation for having nonpartisan career staffers. The move comes one week after Patel told a right-wing news outlet that he’d fire anyone who paid confidential sources to help identify rioters involved in the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection.

Patel has already fired other agents over perceived disloyalty to Trump, and, in one instance, for displaying an LGBTQ pride flag. Twelve agents who were fired last year for taking a knee during the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests sued Patel in December.

The FBI Agents Association, which represents more than 14,000 active and retired FBI special agents, has said that any firings of FBI agents without evidence of misconduct or other proper cause goes against the bureau’s policies, but Patel has ignored such criticisms.

The firings came one day after The New York Times published a lengthy and unflattering account of Patel’s one-year tenure at the FBI based on interviews with 45 current and former bureau employees. Not only did the article show Patel as incompetent and more concerned about image than effectiveness, but it also confirmed that his chief goal is carrying out retribution on behalf of the president. That seems to be the goal in this latest purge.

In apparent blissful ignorance of the country’s ICE-induced bedlam, several House Democrats voted alongside nearly every Republican member to give more money to the immigration agency.

The Department of Homeland Security’s $64.4 billion bill passed Thursday by a vote of 220–207, with seven Democrats voting in its favor. They were Representatives Henry Cuellar (Texas), Tom Suozzi (New York), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Laura Gillen (New York), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Washington), Jared Golden (Maine), and Don Davis (North Carolina).

Ahead of the vote, Suozzi wrote online that while “there is no question that ICE has overstepped its bounds,” he was willing to continue feeding the agency in order to avoid a government shutdown.

“I am voting for the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, not to expand ICE enforcement or add more agents, but to fund the core operations Americans rely on every day, FEMA disaster response, TSA security, Customs and Border Protection, the Coast Guard, passport processing, and other essential services,” Suozzi posted on X.

Suozzi also argued that the funding bill was the “product of bipartisan negotiations and responsible governing” and would provide funding for those critical agencies and services without expanding ICE’s budget.

Gillen issued a similar statement, claiming that her support was driven by advancing FEMA disaster relief. Other priorities of Gillen’s addressed in the package included efforts to stop child trafficking and the spread of fentanyl, and new support for cybersecurity and law enforcement.

“I’m shocked my colleagues would vote to cut off national and community security funding while leaving ICE to operate under the status quo,” she wrote.

The Democrats in favor of the bill tried to underscore its meager wins on reining in ICE: $20 million to outfit ICE personnel with body cameras, cuts to ICE funding for enforcement and removal operations, and a downsizing of the number of detention beds.

But the bulk of the caucus saw the funding package as a broken take on their current policy positions, chastising their colleagues for supporting the agency at a time when ICE is mass-employing undertrained personnel and giving them broad immunity to harass, intimidate, and harm American communities. A vote in favor, according to some Democrats, could bode poorly come midterms.

“You can’t out-Republican Republicans, because you’re going to lose your base and you’re not going to get any of the Republicans to come over to you,” Representative Pramila Jayapal told NBC News.

Meanwhile, one Republican voted against the measure—Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie—though his opposition did not have to do with what’s happening in Minneapolis, Chicago, or other ICE hot spots.

In a post on X, Massie argued that while he “voted for the SAVE Act and support[s] deporting illegals,” he wouldn’t approve more financial support to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which he derided as the “liberals’ favorite censorship agency.”

“I don’t support online censorship,” Massie wrote.

Instead of high-speed rail or sorely needed infrastructure overhaul, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is using his powers to try to bring IndyCar racing to the streets of downtown Washington, D.C.

Punchbowl News reported Friday that Duffy is pushing for an IndyCar race around the National Mall as a part of the America250 celebrations this upcoming August. The Supreme Court would serve as the start and end of a full lap around the mall.

“The Grand Prix is an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate our nation’s proud racing pedigree, showcase the beauty of the National Mall, and generate millions in critical tourism revenue for the capital,” a Transportation Department spokesperson said. “We’ll keep working with our partners in Congress to outline the positive impacts it will have on the District and correct the record.”

The plan would need congressional approval, since there’s a ban on advertising on Capitol grounds, and Democrats are reportedly already concerned about potential infrastructure and logistics issues an event like this could cause. And they aren’t the only skeptics.

“The IndyCar schedule has been set for months, but Duffy wants this GP in August. How does this fit in? Non-championship exhibition event like Thermal Club was in ’24?” journalist Benjamin S. Weiss commented. “Does anyone actually think a street circuit along the Mall would make for good racing?”

FBI Director Kash Patel doesn’t like to read briefings.

Forty-five current FBI employees spoke to The New York Times about the state of the bureau one year into Patel’s tenure, and his lack of interest in reading is one of the many revelations about their new director. What they had to say painted a damning picture of Patel’s leadership.

Patel made his feelings known on the written word during his first director’s call with the heads of the bureau’s field offices. On that call, according to one field office leader, Patel “had no agenda, no thoughts, no strategy or leadership philosophy or priorities to share.”

“I specifically remember him saying at one point, ‘I don’t read.’ He explained he didn’t read briefing materials,” the leader said.

This seems to fit right in with previous reporting about Patel, from his repeated use of the FBI’s private jet to see his singer girlfriend to his apparent obsession with social media. In fact, the tagline of the Times report is about how current and former FBI employees say Patel’s changes “are undermining the agency and making America less safe.”

Patel largely got the FBI job because President Trump was impressed with his desire to take revenge on Trump’s enemies. It seems that a willingness to take the job seriously and effectively run the most powerful law enforcement agency in the U.S. wasn’t a factor, nor was the desire to read important materials. That’s something that he has in common with Trump.