A former federal prosecutor said on Monday that a special counsel should look into the funding of anti-Israel protests on college campuses across the country.
There have been multiple anti-Israel encampments set up on college campuses as protesters demand their schools divest from companies associated with Israel, and some have escalated to violent clashes and protesters taking over academic buildings. Former federal prosecutor Andrew Cherkasky told Fox News host Harris Faulkner that the protests could warrant a federal probe. (RELATED: ‘Hurt A Jew, We Sue You’: Dershowitz Suggests Suing If Liberal DAs Don’t Prosecute Possible Civil Rights Violations)
“I think that this is a point in time where a special counsel would be appropriate to investigate what’s going on all across the country so that one area isn’t particularly focused versus another. The idea of an investigation from the DOJ into what is going on across the campuses needs to look at the idea that it’s criminal behavior that is being organized,” Cherkasky said. “There is a difference between First Amendment right to speech and assembly versus the idea of getting together with a conspiracy in order to engage in criminal behavior, even if that criminal behavior is merely trespassing, but we’ve seen much more than trespassing.”
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“Funding terrorist extreme organizations or those at least who support it, that seems to be something that the FBI, the DOJ should be incredibly interested in,” Cherkasky later said about the funding of the anti-Israel protests. “Look after January 6th, the FBI and the Department of Defense, even, launched these huge extremism type investigations. I talk about that in my new book, ‘Woke Warriors.’ The idea the government is willing to look after and look into the funding and process behind the right-wing type extremists or those that are way out there and they’re not doing it to the left when the message that’s being communicated right now is all about supporting Hamas, a terrorist designated organization, this is a true fundamental breakdown in the Biden Administration.”
Multiple megadonors to Democratic causes have given funds to organizations that support Jewish Voices for Peace and IfNotNow, two groups which are behind the college protests, Politico reported. Both groups are supported by the Tides Foundation, which has reportedly received money from donors including George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
“These are massive funding operations, you could even look at it as a RICO investigation,” Cherkasky added.
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