Josh Hawley asks DOJ to probe student groups for terror ties

Sen. Josh Hawley is asking the Justice Department to investigate whether university student groups that supported Hamas in the wake of its deadly terrorist attack against Israel are receiving funding from the jihadist group.

Hawley (R-Mo.), 43, claimed in a Monday letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland that it is “entirely possible that many of these student organizations” receive or transfer funds as part of a terrorist network.

“In the wake of the brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, we have witnessed an alarming rise in support for violence against the Jewish people,” wrote Hawley.

“Public reports indicate that several far-left student groups have lined up to effectively cheerlead Hamas’s genocidal war against the people of Israel,” he added, noting recent pronouncements and demonstrations at Harvard, UCLA, Columbia and the University of Virginia.

At UCLA, protesters called for an “intifada,” or violent uprising, against Jews.

At UVA, the university’s chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine celebrated the Oct. 7 butchering of more than 1,300 people in southern Israel, including at least 30 Americans.

Hawley also cited a letter from 34 student organizations at Harvard claiming Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence Hamas perpetrated against Jews, as well as the assault of a Jewish student at Columbia by a pro-Palestinian student.

“These student organizations are seemingly lobbying in support of the murder of innocent people, including children and babies,” Hawley wrote. “They are menacing Jewish Americans within our cities. And they are doing so in what appears to be a coordinated fashion.”

“There is a long and sordid history of supposedly independent ‘human rights’ groups operating within American borders, that possess longstanding ties to foreign terrorist organizations,” added the senator, noting that more than a decade ago, the DOJ cut off funding to the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and imprisoned its founders for having transferred money to Hamas, an officially designated terrorist group.

Hawley said it was well within Garland’s authority to seek the financial information because any ties would “threaten national security.”

House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and six other Harvard alumni serving in Congress on Friday sent a letter to Harvard president Claudine Gay calling on her to resign for not denouncing the “dangerous antisemitism” espoused by the groups.

“The Iran-backed terrorist organization slaughtered over 1,000 people on the first day of their attack, the greatest loss of life for the Jewish community in a single day since the Holocaust,” wrote Stefanik and Reps. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), Kevin Kiley (R-Calif.) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.), as well as Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).

“Any voice that excuses the slaughter of innocent women, children, and babies has chosen the side of evil and terrorism,” they said. “Harvard University must publicly condemn this statement and make it clear that it opposes violence against Israeli citizens.”

Gay condemned the “barbaric atrocities perpetrated by Hamas” but made no mention of the statement from the university’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, which blamed “the apartheid regime” of Israel for the horrific acts of violence.

“Our university rejects the harassment or intimidation of individuals based on their beliefs,” Gay said. “That commitment extends even to views that many of us find objectionable, even outrageous. We do not punish or sanction people for expressing such views.”

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Israel on Campus Coalition has also called on US universities to end funding for all chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine, according to Fox News, which first reported on Hawley’s letter.