Above photo: FBI Academy Gym Seal / WikiCommons.
The FBI visited U.S. journalist Ken Klippenstein’s home after he published the embassy shooting suspect’s so called manifesto.
The intimidation of the journalist is part of the wider Trump crackdown on speech and the pro-Palestine movement.
Last week, U.S. journalist Ken Klippenstein was visited by the FBI.
The Feds showed up at Klippenstein’s place because he published the so-called manifesto of Elias Rodriguez, who is suspected of killing two Israeli Embassy staffers, on his Substack.
As Klippenstein points out in his post about the incident, any mainstream outlet could have published the manifesto, but has chosen not to. “The media just doesn’t want to publish it,” he notes. “And the FBI doesn’t want the media to think it can.”
He says the agents were “aggressive and threatening.” They asked him 11 questions about the manifesto, most of them connected to how he obtained it and whether he had any additional knowledge about Rodriguez. They even had some questions implying there might be a conspiracy connecting him with the alleged shooter.
This development cannot be detached from Trump’s crackdown on dissent.
“The administration has many times publicly warned about shadowy, unseen forces that it believes are bankrolling everything from Tesla vandalism to the college protests,” wrote Klippenstein. “That tone from the top, labeling seemingly everything terrorism, tells personnel that the gloves are off and more aggressive work in the field is now permissible.”
“Get ready to hear that I’m impeding the investigation, giving people a roadmap to the ‘sources and methods’ that are used to catch terrorists, or whatever reason the national security state soundboard offers up for why the public isn’t allowed to know things,” he continued.
Smears on the pro-Palestine movement roll in
As soon as the killings took place, pro-Israel pundits, groups, and lawmakers were smearing the Palestine solidarity movement and pushing for more repression.
“Since October 7, antisemitism has surged across the country,” tweeted Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). “On college campuses, in the streets, and across social media, antisemitism isn’t just spreading — it’s being tolerated, normalized, and even celebrated. It’s disgusting and completely unacceptable.”
“The domestic progressive/intifada movement is going to devolve into the Weather Underground very rapidly, and it’s going to get MUCH worse unless we really crack down on these people,” wrote NYC Council member Vickie Paladino. “The DSA, WFP, SJP, People’s Forum, and a dozen other leftist political organizations are deeply involved with pushing terrorism. They need to be treated accordingly.”
Time Magazine ran a piece by ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, calling on social media companies to target leftist Twitch streamers like Hasan Piker.
Greenblatt made the same point in a CNN appearance, in which he claimed that Piker spreads “awful genocidal rhetoric against Jewish people” and called for him to be deplatformed.
In fact, he was. Shortly after Piker openly discussed the motivations of the embassy shooter on his show, Twitch suspended him for “improper handling of terrorist propaganda.”
“I believe this is a bad policy for news and press freedom,” tweeted Piker. “Take the suspension, but hope Twitch changes this policy in the future.”
Supporters of Israel, and its ongoing genocide in Gaza, have a vested interest in shutting down discussions of the shooter’s motivation because such inquiries might reveal that he was inspired to act as a result of Israeli policy, as opposed to antisemitism.
The antisemitism narrative was immediately pushed by the administration.
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW!,” wrote Trump on Truth Social. “Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA. Condolences to the families of the victims. So sad that such things as this can happen! God Bless You ALL!”
This is the theme of the aforementioned Greenblatt editorial, which throws a series of dizzying statistics at the reader.
“Last year was the worst for antisemitic incidents since ADL began tracking over four decades ago,” he explains. “We recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents across the United States—an increase of 5% from 2023, which was itself a record-setting year. That includes a 21% increase in violent assaults. This represents an 893% increase over the past decade.”
This paragraph doesn’t reveal why these statistics are so high. It’s because the ADL’s annual audit classifies anti-Zionist protest and action as antisemitic. 58% of the “antisemitic incidents” are connected to Israel. Signs that say, “Globalize the Intifada,” students chanting, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” etc.
People like Greenblatt have been citing such statistics for years, while pushing for censorship of pro-Palestine views and terrorist investigations into students who dare question U.S. support for Israel.
Greenblatt might be a former Obama official, but he’s gotten everything he wants from the Republican administration and could not care less about the Constitution getting trampled as a result.
Last month, perhaps assuming that the ADL is a civil rights organization, CNN asked Greenblatt about people getting kidnapped by ICE for the crime of criticizing Israel.
“Look, at the ADL, it’s our job to protect the Jewish people. We’re not sort of public defenders for some of the Hamasniks on these college campuses, and I don’t want to be, and I think I really need to say that,” Greenblatt explained.
“You take Mahmoud Khalil, who is one of the ringleaders at Columbia. Based on his conduct, we thought he was a very problematic individual,” he continued. “I don’t know if he lied on his visa application or anything like that. But on his conduct, not his speech, the challenge comes when the administration doesn’t substantiate or clarify the specific of the charges. So that’s where this due process thing comes into the works. Now again, it’s not my job at the ADL to find due process for of these young people.”
Before the embassy shooting, Piker was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and questioned for 2 hours about Trump, Hamas, and Hezbollah.
“Obviously, the reason for why they’re doing that is, I think, to try to create an environment of fear for people like myself or, at least others who would be in my shoes who don’t have the same level of security, to shut the f— up,” Piker said.
Student Updates
Mahmoud Khalil was finally able to hold his newborn son after a federal judge ruled against a Trump administration effort to keep them separated by plexiglass during a recent family visit.
In recent court testimony, Khalil said deportation back to Syria could be a death sentence for him. As a youth, Khalil organized protests targeting ousted president Bashar al-Assad and believes he could be targeted by remaining operatives in the country.
“His life is at stake, your honor,” one of his lawyers told the judge.
Badar Khan Suri, the postdoctoral Georgetown scholar who was detained by the Trump administration and recently released, is sharing details of his time behind bars.
“For the first seven, eight days, I even missed my shadow,” he said in a recent interview. “It was Kafka-esqe, where they were taking me, what they were doing to me. I was chained — my ankles, my wrist, my body. Everything was chained.”
“I had only worried that, ‘Oh, my kids are suffering because of me,’ My eldest son is only nine, and my twins are only five,” he continued. “My nine-year-old knows where I am. He was going through very rough times. My wife used to tell me that he was crying. He needs support from mental health.”
Mohsen Mahdawi, the Palestinian student who was released from federal detention earlier this month, graduated from Columbia University.
“It’s very mixed emotions,” he told the Associated Press. “The Trump administration wanted to rob me of this opportunity. They wanted me to be in a prison, in prison clothes, to not have education and to not have joy or celebration.”
In a recent interview with Democracy Now‘s Amy Goodman, Mahdawi provided details of his life and what led him to arrive in the United States:
Mahdawi: What I am doing here in America, this is exactly the question that I hope for the government to ask and to look into, rather than just labeling me. What I’ve been protesting for is related to my firsthand life experience. As a child, I buried my own brother when I was 8 years old. He was 6 years old. And my brother faced serious issues. He was paralyzed because the Israeli army prevented my father from taking him to receive medical care. The camp was under siege. And then, in the Second Intifada, when it started in 2000, I was 10 years old, and I witnessed my best friend getting shot and killed in front of my eyes. And the pain of injustice that you feel when you see just a kid who you loved so much be — his life being taken away in a second, is a painful experience. But that wasn’t it, too. My uncle, on September 12, 2001, after September 11, my uncle Thayer was killed on the hands of the Israeli army, as well.
Goodman: Where?
Mahdawi: In Tamoun, in fact, between Al-Faraa refugee camp and Tamoun, the same town that five people were killed. It’s only five miles away — actually, five kilometers away, about three miles away, from the refugee camp.
Goodman The five people who were just killed in the last day.
Mahdawi: That’s correct. So it hits home, everything that I am seeing and I am witnessing. I mean, in the Second Intifada, also I lost two cousins. I was shot in my leg when I was 15 years old. And some people would say, “Oh, what was happening? And why those people were killed?” This does not — what matters is that children live in pain, in suffering, in trauma. And we have to see that for what it is. And we cannot just justify the killing, the murder, the continuous occupation, the apartheid, the genocide. We cannot justify it anymore. We either have to be pro-peace or pro-war. There is no third option. Enough is enough. So many people are suffering. And for me, many family members in the West Bank since October 7th, four cousins in Gaza, more than 30 of my extended family.
And I come here to Columbia, and what I do, I share my pain with the world, and I say, “This is so painful. The war must stop. Children are suffering. The trauma is unbearable.” And what they do, the American government and the extreme groups, the pro-Israel extreme groups, they want to silence me. They don’t want me to grieve. They don’t want me to share the pain. They don’t want me to share the loss. They don’t want me to ask for justice. Doesn’t matter if I’m doing it in the most peaceful, nonviolent way or not. They want to silence me.
