Trump Tries to Move Harvard Litigation Out of Boston, to Court of Federal Claims

Plus, Senator Warren warns against “allowing Netanyahu to drag us into another endless war.”

In today’s newsletter: a new filing from the Trump administration in the litigation between Harvard and the federal government over Harvard’s federal funding. Plus, three additional Harvard-related items.

Also: a Mayor Wu campaign ad features Ash Wednesday ashes.

Also: Senator Warren sounds like she’s auditioning for an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s show.

And, mark your calendar: coming this Thursday, June 19 at 10:30 am eastern time, we are planning a live video session with a New York City mayoral candidate, Whitney Tilson, who has been leading the fight against socialist boycott-Israel advocate Zohran Mamdani.

Harvard University’s federal funding is the topic of a court case in Boston that the Trump administration says belongs elsewhere.

The Justice Department, in a little-noticed recent filing in Harvard’s lawsuit seeking to preserve its billions of dollars in federal research funding, asks a federal district judge in Boston to rule against the suit on the grounds that it is purely a contract dispute over money that properly belongs before the Federal Court of Claims.

“Harvard, the richest university in the history of world, annually receives billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars from the federal government,” says the U.S. Government filing in the case, President and Fellows of Harvard College v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services et. al. “Because Harvard only demands money, this Court lacks jurisdiction under the Tucker Act—which commits such suits to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal Court of Claims.”

“This case is about money,” the government’s June 16 legal filing says. It says that some of the letters in the case that Harvard is complaining about are not “final agency action” under the Administrative Procedure Act, a law that Harvard is relying on in its effort to keep the money flowing.

The filing also rejects Harvard’s First Amendment Claims. “Unlawful discrimination finds no safe haven under the First Amendment, even though it may involve speaking or other expressive activity,” the government says, citing a ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns in Kestenbaum v. President & Fellows of Harvard College.

The federal judge who has the case in Boston, Allison Burroughs, was appointed by President Obama and ruled in Harvard’s favor after a trial in a high-profile case over racial discrimination in college admissions. Harvard eventually lost that case at the Supreme Court.

Three bonus Harvard-related items: The director of the Middle East program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amr Hamzawy, is out with a piece published on the Carnegie website complaining that “For the past few months, the greatest threat to security in the Middle East has been the military adventurism pursued by Israel’s far-right government and its belief in its ability to impose its will on its enemies through warfare, coupled with its effective rejection of negotiations and peaceful solutions.” That’s a very strange view of the situation. I think the greatest threat to security in the Middle East is (soon to be was) Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and that the ones rejecting peaceful solutions have been Hamas and Iran, not Israel. The president of the Carnegie Endowment is Mariano-Florentino (Tino) Cuéllar, a member of Harvard’s governing Corporation.

Meanwhile, the extreme anti-Israel group Writers Against the War on Gaza has launched a boycott against KKR, whose co-CEO Joe Bae is also a Harvard Corporation member. The reasoning for the boycott is so deranged that I hesitate to repeat it here. If you are interested there is an explanation on the Writers Against the War on Gaza website that is about as nutty as what is being published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Finally, Rep. Elise Stefanik, chairwoman of House Republican Leadership, has sent a June 17, 2025 letter to the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Paul Atkins, asking him to investigate whether Harvard “failed to disclose material information” in its April 9 bond offering. Stefanik refers only to SEC rules, but cases under the criminal code of 18 U.S. Code Section 1344—bank fraud—which carry prison sentences of up to 30 years—have been brought for knowingly borrowing against assets the value of which is inflated, as Stefanik says Harvard’s private equity, venture capital, and real estate investments may be.

Wu ad features Ash Wednesday ashes: A political action committee backing Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, who faces a challenge from Josh Kraft, is out with a new campaign commercial that accuses Kraft, a son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, of trying to “buy the election.” The ad touts Wu as having “experience money can’t buy.” For much of the ad, Wu is pictured with a cross of Ash Wednesday ashes on her forehead. This fits a bit with our May 21 post “Democratic Politicians Step Up Religious Rhetoric” though in Wu’s case it isn’t so much rhetoric as images. The language of “money” and “buy” may be a way to attack Kraft for being wealthy. If Wu had more concrete accomplishments to tout maybe she and her allies would be advertising about them rather than going negative against Kraft.

Senator Warren demonizes Netanyahu: Faced with a confrontation between the forces of civilization and a radical terror-sponsoring, human-rights-abusing, nuclear-arms-seeking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, some number of members of Congress have somehow convinced themselves that the real villain in the situation is the elected prime minister of Israel. “Allowing Netanyahu to drag us into another endless war in the Middle East would be a catastrophic error by President Trump and Republicans in Congress,” Senator Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, posted to social media today.

Warren was echoing Zohran Mamdani-endorser Senator Sanders of Vermont, who said in a June 16 press release: “Netanyahu started this war with a surprise unilateral attack against Iran, which has already killed hundreds of people and wounded many more. This attack was specifically designed to sabotage American diplomatic efforts…The United States must not be dragged into another of Netanyahu’s wars — not militarily or financially. …And let’s remember who Benjamin Netanyahu is: He is a war criminal under indictment by the International Criminal Court for the use of starvation as a method of warfare and directing attacks against the civilian population in Gaza. At this very moment, in Gaza, Israel continues to prevent the U.N. and other aid groups from delivering desperately needed humanitarian aid to starving civilians. In just the last two weeks, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of civilians trying to reach the few militarized aid distribution sites the Israeli government has permitted to operate. Netanyahu’s illegal, unilateral attack on Iran is just his latest violation of international law. Under his extremist government, Israel is increasingly becoming a rogue state and a pariah among nations. The United States must not be a part of this war.”

The actual dynamic here is less “Netanyahu drag us into” and more akin to a late co-author trying to jump onto an academic paper that’s already been accepted into a prestigious journal. Trump can see a big victory against Iran coming and wants some of the credit for it. That may help to explain why the messaging has progressed from day one, with Secretary Rubio’s statement that “Israel took unilateral action…we are not involved,” to where we are now, with Trump posting, “we now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran” and demanding of Iran “unconditional surrender.” It would set up quite a visual contrast: With Biden, America surrendered Afghanistan. With Trump, Khamenei might surrender Iran. No wonder the Democrats are so eager to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Anyway, as Senator Cotton pointed out, “The forever war is the war that Iran has waged against the United States, Israel, and the civilized world since 1979.” Sanders and Warren sound like they are trying to get onto Tucker Carlson’s program. I was going to write that it is a shame that the voters have never punished either Sanders or Warren for their extremism, but actually the Democratic primary voters chose, in Hillary Clinton in 2016 and in Joe Biden in 2020, to deliver the presidential nomination to more moderate voices and thus to deny Sanders or Warren a shot at making the decisions that Trump faces.