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.