Mahmoud Khalil Sues Senior Trump Officials Under the KKK Act

Mahmoud Khalil, who was detained for helping lead pro-Palestine protests at Columbia University and still faces deportation threats, is suing the Trump administration under the KKK Act of 1871. 

Khalil filed the lawsuit against senior administration officials in addition to right-wing Zionist organizations in federal court Tuesday, alleging that the administration conspired with these groups in a campaign of intimidation, arrests, and deportations against pro-Palestine activists, including himself. 

The 131-page lawsuit names multiple administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin, and Mullin’s predecessor, Kristi Noem. It also names the Heritage Foundation, Canary Mission, and Betar, among other right-wing and Zionist groups. 

“Collectively, the conspirators’ actions, motivated by their shared unlawful purpose and animus, sought to terrorize and make an example of Mr. Khalil and other noncitizen Palestinians or supporters of Palestinians in order to intimidate and silence the growing movement for Palestinian rights and political freedom, in a manner the KKK Act was designed to proscribe when enacted during Reconstruction,” the lawsuit states. 

Last year, Khalil filed a Freedom of Information Act request with multiple federal agencies to “document and expose the reported collaboration between federal officials and private, anti-Palestinian organizations who have identified, doxxed, and reported him and others for purposes of securing the deportation of student activists advocating on behalf of Palestinian human rights.”

Khalil’s attorneys alleged at the time that his March 2025 arrest and the threat of his deportation, as well as that of other pro-Palestine activists, was part of a pattern of government officials working with far-right and pro-Israel organizations to target them. The Revisionist Zionist organization Betar was openly recommending foreign students and teachers who protested against Israel for deportation to the Trump administration as early as January 2025, and would take credit if one of the people they recommended was arrested. 

Last year, a separate trial revealed that the pro-Israel Canary Mission, which anonymously doxxes critics of Israel online, handed Department of Homeland Security officials a list of foreign citizens in the U.S. who attended pro-Palestine protests. In some cases, the federal government followed up and arrested some of those people. The Heritage Foundation was named in the lawsuit because of Project Esther, an addendum to its Project 2025 manifesto, which outlined plans to target pro-Palestine noncitizens for deportation.  

Khalil, 31, is married to a U.S. citizen and is a legal U.S. permanent resident. He was arrested at his New York apartment in March 2025, spent 100 days in federal detention, missed the birth of his first child, and continues to be threatened with deportation. At a press conference Tuesday, he said, “This lawsuit is about accountability and justice.” 

“No matter where I am, I will not stop fighting until everyone who willingly contributed to my missing the birth of my son and to taking 104 days of my life from me answers for what they’ve done,” Khalil said. 

Donald Trump has resorted to begging the Senate to confirm acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to officially run the Justice Department.

In a lengthy Truth Social post Tuesday, the president claimed that Blanche was responsible for the lowest murder rates in 125 years but that arrests for violent crime were simultaneously “UP 100” percent.

“This is what happens when you unleash LAW AND ORDER on our streets, instead of protecting vicious Criminal Thugs, and releasing dangerous Illegal Aliens into our Communities like the Dumocrats did for four disastrous years under Sleepy Joe Biden,” Trump wrote.

The president also claimed that Blanche had protected an array of MAGA priorities, including railing against transgender people in women’s sports, protecting free speech, strengthening the nation’s election integrity, ending the “weaponization” of America’s justice system, and going “to all-out-WAR against Fraud like nobody in the History of the Department of Justice.”

But the main reason Trump wants Blanche for the job came at the end of the post. The president lauded Blanche—who prior to his stint in the Justice Department served as Trump’s personal attorney—for representing him throughout several criminal trials. Blanche defended Trump in his New York hush-money case, his classified documents case, the federal 2020 presidential election interference case, as well as the Fulton County, Georgia, RICO case.

As an apparent reward for Blanche’s ongoing loyalty, Trump gave him a plum position with the Justice Department. Since then, Blanche has utilized his office to enact Trump’s retribution campaign against his perceived enemies, attempted to force through the president’s $1.8 billion taxpayer-funded slush fund, worked to squash the Epstein files, and has even arrested local officials—such as Newark Mayor Ras Baraka—for attempting to conduct oversight of ICE’s regional detention facilities.

“He is a great lawyer, always very fair, and every Republican Senator should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blanche, ASAP!” Trump concluded.

But Blanche is nonetheless expected to have a long day ahead of him. The 51-year-old attorney will enter the Senate on Wednesday at 10 a.m. E.T. to begin his confirmation hearing, where several wayward and outbound Republicans—including Senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis—have already indicated their intention to grill him. Both senators currently owe nothing to the Trump administration as they ride out the remainder of their respective terms.

Speaking with HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery Tuesday, Tillis said he’s “looking forward to it.”

After the latest fatal ICE shooting, Immigration and Customs Enforcement will temporarily halt vehicle stops in its enforcement operations, according to several reports.

The change was first reported Tuesday by the conservative site The Daily Wire and has since been corroborated by numerous other outlets.

It comes after ICE, in separate incidents over the span of less than a week, shot and killed two men during vehicle stops. Most recently, an ICE agent fatally shot 26-year-old Joan Sebastian Guerrero, a father who was reportedly authorized to work in the U.S., in Biddeford, Maine.

During Donald Trump’s second term, there have now been at least 11 fatal shootings by immigration officials, multiple of which have taken place during vehicle stops.

According to The Daily Wire, Department of Homeland Security agents were told, “No more vehicle stops for now.” But the move is neither permanent nor all-encompassing. The new policy does not apply “in cases involving serious criminal targets,” CBS News reports, and it is “a temporary pause” while officers in the Enforcement and Removal Operations division of ICE “receive additional training on vehicle-stop tactics.”

The news has chagrined some anti-immigration hardliners who are, apparently, unmoved by the bloodshed. One source in the Department of Homeland Security, for instance, complained to The Daily Wire: “Numbers are going down, we can’t do sh*t.”

Meanwhile, many who have spoken up against ICE’s killings see the change as too little, too late.

“They’re just trying to cover for the fact that what they are doing shouldn’t be allowable in the first place,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent’s Eric Michael Garcia.

“It shouldn’t have taken the killing of two innocent people for ICE to cease this reckless and deadly enforcement tactic,” posted the House Homeland Security Committee Democrats on X.

Other observers pointed out that several victims, such as Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, were killed by ICE in situations other than vehicle stops.

Rapper and Trump supporter Boosie Badazz is naming more names after he was allegedly scammed out of $600,000 for a presidential pardon that never came.

“LAURA LOOMER, MIKE CERNOVICH, JACK POSOBIEC, ERIKA KIRK, MIKE JOHNSON, NANCY MASE, ANDY BIGGS,” wrote Badazz—whose legal name is Torrence Hatch—naming a slew of right-wing politicians and commentators who may have been involved. “CAN THE NAMES ABOVE PLEASE MAKE A TRUTHFUL STATEMENT ABOUT HAVING CONTACT R NO CONTACT WITH BURKMAN N WHOL ABOUT MY PARDON PROCESS. 600k WAS TAKEN FROM ME WITH YOUR NAMES MENTIONED N EMAILS BY THESE PEOPLE.”

Hatch made a $600,000 payment to Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman of JM Burkman & Associates last year in the hopes of expediting a pardon request from Trump. Hatch was seeking the pardon after pleading guilty to possessing a loaded weapon in a 2023 music video.

Hatch alleges that Wohl and Burkman, both far-right conspiracy theorists and convicted felons,  told his lawyer that this list of people had endorsed Hatch for a pardon. Hatch also claimed that the two men called his lawyer on New Year’s Day to say that Trump had signed a pardon for him and would announce it soon. No such thing ever happened, and he is now demanding they repay half of his initial payment. The White House told NOTUS they never received said pardon request, and Burkman and Wohl said they wouldn’t be paying Hatch back. 

“Hey Lil Boosie, I don’t privately advocate for pardons nor accept money to do so. I do promote pardons publicly, with full transparency,” wrote Mike Cernovich, one of the commentators that Hatch named. “Nothing against you, but never recommended a pardon for you nor even knew you wanted one.”

On its face, this seems like a bribe gone wrong, especially given the White House’s comment. Wohl and Burkman each have spotty records already, having been convicted of an illegal robocall campaign targeting Black voters in 2022.

This story has been updated.

The main investor in a South Korean aluminum company facing an investigation by the Department of Commerce paid $2 million to President Trump’s holding company last year.

Trump included the payment from Base Group in his financial disclosure form in late June, The New York Times reports. The form stated that the payment was for a “nonrefundable development fee” and part of a “letter of intent,” but offered no further explanation. The Trump Organization told the Times in a statement that the payment is part of a golf course project that has yet to be announced.

“We have been in the golf, hospitality, and real estate business for decades and have entered into transactions with countless companies around the world,” Alan Garten, chief legal officer for the Trump Organization, said in the statement. “Any suggestion that this transaction was driven by anything other than legitimate business considerations is pure fiction.”

The Trump family has a longstanding relationship with Base Group, which exclusively sells Trump-branded wine in South Korea. The company hosted the president’s son Eric in February at its headquarters in Seoul for a meeting to increase trade between South Korea and the U.S.

The Commerce Department found in 2023 that Korea Aluminum, of which Base Group has a major stake, skirted trade duties on Chinese-made aluminum. Since then, the company has significantly cut its exports to the U.S.

The Times has not found any evidence that the president or his family members have tried to advocate for Base Group or Korea Aluminum with government officials. But the payment raises questions about conflicts of interest concerning the president and his family with government operations. Trump has close to 30 different ventures with foreign businesses around the world, according to the Times, creating issues that were unheard of in any previous presidential administration.

Trump has made a whopping $2.2 billion in his second term as president from cryptocurrency, foreign real estate, stock trading, and other ventures. Being president isn’t supposed to be a business move to increase one’s personal fortune, but Trump has used the office to make himself wealthier, ignoring the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution with the Supreme Court’s assent.

We only have the Trump Organization’s word that this South Korea payment didn’t come with any government favors. Who knows whether that is true, or if Trump has taken money in other cases from businesses in exchange for favorable policies.