Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News
Wednesday, August 19, 2026

A former Justice Department attorney alleges the DOJ's investigations into alleged antisemitism at Ivy League schools had predetermined conclusions and didn't use normal investigative practices.

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... The allegations come from a whistleblower complaint filed with the House Judiciary Committee on Monday evening.

Haley Van Erem, a former career attorney of nearly a decade in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, told Congress there were irregularities in the manner in which three investigations into schools were carried out.

"Senior officials at DOJ and HHS departed from longstanding investigative practices designed to ensure due process, accuracy and legal compliance," according to the 28-page complaint sent to the House Judiciary Committee. "For at least some of the investigations, there was little to no factual predicate justifying opening them. When they asked questions, raised legal concerns, or sought to document their objections, they were sometimes admonished and their concerns were often disregarded."

Certain "enforcement outcomes had been predetermined before the relevant evidence was collected and evaluated," according to the complaint.

The whistleblower complaint does not question the seriousness of antisemitism investigations, but rather comes from a career attorney who says he believes these investigations were not impartial, according to the complaint.

During the investigation into Brown University, witness interviews and document reviews concluded that there was no Title VI violation, but some in DOJ leadership still sought a settlement violation. ...


#1 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-19 11:31 PM | Reply

Another view ...

DOJ whistleblower alleges probes into universities were politically motivated
www.highereddive.com

... The Trump administration's civil rights investigations into three Ivy League universities were politically motivated and designed to pressure those institutions into settlements, a former U.S. Department of Justice attorney alleged in a whistleblower account Monday.

Officials pressed for deals with Columbia and Harvard universities despite hasty or incomplete investigations, Haley Van Erem, who worked in the Justice Department's civil rights division for almost a decade, alleged. At Brown University, officials pursued a deal even after investigators concluded that there wasn't evidence to support a civil rights violation.

The outcomes of the investigations were "predetermined, without regard to evidence," the account alleges. Moreover, Trump officials pulled vast sums of federal funding from the universities before probes were even completed. ...


#2 | Posted by LampLighter at 2026-08-20 12:43 AM | Reply

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