The American Israel Public Affairs Committee waged a proud and public campaign to assert its dominance last cycle — sinking more than $100 million into the 2024 elections to oust critics of Israel from Congress. AIPAC spent more on elections that cycle than any other individual single-issue interest group; celebrated its super PAC, United Democracy Project, as “one of the largest bipartisan super PACs in America”; and took credit for endorsing 361 pro-Israel candidates who prevailed in hundreds of races.

That success met with public disgust with Israel’s genocide in Gaza and drove a massive backlash, fueling a growing movement to eradicate AIPAC’s influence and propel insurgent candidates to Congress on pledges to refuse the pro-Israel lobby’s support. Now, as the 2026 midterms approach, AIPAC and its preferred candidates have pulled back from the aggressive electoral strategy they pursued last time.

Related

AIPAC Head Hosts Fundraiser for House Candidate Who Swears AIPAC Isn’t Backing Her

None of this is to say that AIPAC is planning to let its influence slip away. While the group has not yet publicly endorsed any new candidates this cycle, there’s still time, and it’s working behind closed doors to boost its preferred candidates’ campaigns. Earlier this month, for example, AIPAC’s board president held a fundraiser for an Illinois House candidate who has said publicly that she isn’t seeking the group’s endorsement. In another district in the same state, AIPAC donors rallied around a real estate mogul’s congressional campaign.

The moves represent the latest in a series of strategic adaptations AIPAC has made in recent years while navigating a shifting political landscape on issues related to Israel.

“They are fully aware their brand is in the toilet,” said former Rep. Marie Newman, D-Ill., whom pro-Israel donors helped oust in 2022.

By this time last cycle, AIPAC had already endorsed most of its slate. But with a growing field of candidates running on rejecting AIPAC money and attacking those who take it, the group is returning to a quieter strategy that it used for years to build its influence.

“AIPAC is thought of toxically across the nation,” Newman said. “On doors, when you knock and go to canvasses and go to speaking engagements here, standard rank-and-file centrist Dems are like, ‘No, no more AIPAC and no more corporate PACs.’”

Merely rejecting AIPAC money will not be enough to serve as the new standard for progressive candidates for long, said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

Swearing off the group’s cash “doesn’t mean anything,” on its own, Friedman said. “What is going to matter is where candidates, or incumbents who are trying to return to office, where they stand on issues. As it becomes clear that AIPAC is going to work around the ‘people don’t want to take our money’ and find other ways to support candidates, it’s really going to be a question of, where do people stand on what are in some ways litmus-test issues for AIPAC?”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom appears to have picked up on the anti-AIPAC trend. During a press tour as rumors swirl about a potential run for president, Newsom said earlier this month that he won’t take money from the group. In October, Newsom told the podcast Higher Learning, “I haven’t thought about AIPAC in — it’s interesting, you’re like the first to bring up AIPAC in years.”

Despite Newsom’s statements, his record on Israel policy leaves questions about how far he’d go to ally himself with the Palestinian cause. He’s celebrated accolades from far-right pro-Israel groups like the Anti-Defamation League, and his last two public statements on anniversaries of the October 7 attacks did not mention Palestinians killed. Newsom did not call for a ceasefire in Gaza until March 2024, after both President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris did so.

While some pro-Palestine advocates applauded Newsom for vetoing an online hate speech bill they said would have targeted politically protected speech, Newsom did not cite those concerns as part of his decision. California’s powerful tech industry had also hoped he would reject the bill.

Newsom is also facing criticism over a controversial bill he signed into law in October to address antisemitism in California schools, which a coalition of teachers associations, civil rights organizations, and interfaith groups argue would censor legitimate criticism of Israel and pro-Palestine voices. Opponents are suing to stop the law from going into effect on January 1.

Anticipating criticism, other candidates have kept their policy stances regarding Israel quiet. George Hornedo, who’s challenging Democratic Rep. André Carson in Indiana, had a secret pro-Israel policy page on his campaign website this summer that’s since been taken down. Hornedo has not said publicly whether or not he’ll take AIPAC money, but he told The Intercept that his campaign “rejects corporate PAC money.”

“I’m not coordinating with, nor am I relying on or seeking, financial intervention from national organizations in this race. This campaign is focused on building support directly here in Indianapolis, not inviting national groups to shape or define the race,” Hornedo said in a statement. “On Gaza, my position is straightforward. Gaza should be flooded with humanitarian aid and the U.S. should not provide offensive weapons to any country unless their use complies with international humanitarian law.”

“We’re seeing an uptick in Democrats who forswear AIPAC money because it’s become an electoral liability,” said Hamid Bendaas, communications director for the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. “But it’s unclear if they will keep that standard by rejecting support from other organizations — chiefly but not limited to Democratic Majority for Israel — who have similar policy agendas to AIPAC, especially regarding more weapons to Israel.”

In its current approach, AIPAC has returned to a strategy in previous races when it funneled money to candidates through other vehicles to keep its name — and the criticism it’s increasingly drawing — out of the race. AIPAC donors have supported its picks by giving to other dark-money groups that outwardly have nothing to do with Israel policy, like the political action committee 314 Action, which helps elects scientists and last cycle flooded the campaign of Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Ore. — whom AIPAC never formally endorsed.

“We know AIPAC knows their brand is toxic,” Newman said. “So much so, they are taking their brand out of campaigns and funneling their money through other PACs and donors such as 314 science, DMFI, several small PACs, and of course individual AIPAC members who give as a donor because the candidates can say they received money from donors, not AIPAC, to avoid association with AIPAC.”

AIPAC isn’t necessarily backing off under fire — it’s returning to the way it operated before it started spending directly on elections in the 2022 cycle.

Prior to launching its super PAC and regular affiliated PAC, AIPAC was active in politics for more than half a century, working quietly in the halls of Congress and around Washington, D.C., to establish one of the most successful lobbying apparatuses in the country. First launched as a machine to counter negative press coverage of Israel, AIPAC quickly expanded its focus to influencing U.S. policy toward Israel. It positioned itself as a key source of information on Middle East issues for members of Congress and built out regional offices across the country, energizing a network of local pro-Israel activists. AIPAC has routinely lobbied presidents and congressional offices, funded trips to Israel for members of Congress and hosted members to address its annual policy conference, extending its reach into the halls of power without touching electoral politics.

Related

Progressives on AIPAC’s Defeat of Bowman: “Now We Know How Much It Costs to Buy an Election”

The approach was hugely successful, allowing AIPAC to maintain the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus on the hill for decades. The group had long said it would never launch a PAC — but that changed as a growing number of candidates began running on criticizing unconditional U.S. military support for Israel in the late 2010s. AIPAC then began spending on campaigns, starting with funding ads from Democratic Majority for Israel, attacking Bernie Sanders in Nevada during his 2020 presidential primary campaign.

In 2021, the group launched AIPAC PAC, which allowed it to wade into congressional races; shortly after, it officially launched its super PAC, United Democracy Project. The group drew scrutiny in the 2022 cycle for endorsing 37 Republicans who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

“Clearly, AIPAC knows exactly how toxic they are to Democratic Party voters who see them as a right-wing extremist lobby, championing a right-wing agenda, and funded by right-wing megadonors trying to buy our elections,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. “Voters are not interested in politicians who say one thing to their constituents and another to billionaire Republican donors, but AIPAC excels at finding candidates eager to reject authenticity and embrace moral cowardice if it means a seat in Congress.”

The post AIPAC Is Retreating From Endorsements and Election Spending. It Won’t Give Up Its Influence. appeared first on The Intercept.

The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund, a nonprofit best known for backing police facing legal consequences for their actions, plans to ask the federal government to use a provision previously used to probe police violations of civil rights to investigate the office of Fairfax County, Virginia, Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano over his handling of cases involving undocumented immigrants, Fox News reported.

The Trump administration recently put Descano in the spotlight when it attacked his office over claims that he dropped charges against a 23-year-old undocumented immigrant who was accused of killing a man the next day. Trump’s Department of Homeland Security has also blamed former President Joe Biden’s administration for dismissing the man’s immigration proceedings and labeling him as “a non-enforcement priority.”

The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund is invoking the same provision of federal law that the Biden administration previously used to investigate police in Louisville, Kentucky, after they killed Breonna Taylor in 2020. The law calls for policing to abide by the Constitution and establishes procedures for when police display a “pattern or practice of conduct” that violates civil rights.

Now, the pro-police group wants to argue that prosecutors like Descano are discriminating against the public by favoring undocumented immigrants in prosecutorial decisions. The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund is effectively arguing that a pattern of leniency toward immigrants by Descano constitutes discrimination against American citizens.

“The MO of MAGA groups like LELDF is to partner with the Trump Administration to weaponize the justice system and go after people they don’t like — in this case, reform prosecutors they disagree with philosophically,” said Michael Collins, an independent consultant who works on prosecutorial reform.

“Laws designed to protect people’s rights and curb official misconduct shouldn’t be repurposed to target officials over policy differences or prosecutorial discretion,” Collins said. “This kind of legal warfare erodes trust in our justice system and undermines the very protections these laws were meant to uphold.”

Neither Descano nor the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund immediately responded to a request for comment.

Related

Oakland Homicides Dropped 30 Percent. The County Still Recalled Its Prosecutor.

The Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund has made attacking elected prosecutors a cornerstone of its work in recent years. This year, the group released a report focusing on the Wren Collective, an organization that works with progressive prosecutors around the country, and claimed that left-wing donors like George Soros are controlling the group and corrupting the criminal justice system.

In Virginia, the group has been trying to remove Descano and another elected prosecutor in Arlington County, Parisa Dehghani-Tafti, since shortly after they first won office, though so far the police group has gotten little traction.

Descano has faced two efforts to launch recall elections against him, both organized by groups headed by Sean Kennedy, who directs policy for the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and leads another group, Virginians for Safe Communities, which tried to launch a recall against Descano in 2021.

The LELDF spends about three-quarters of its program service budget on public and media relations, according to its most recent tax filing. About a quarter of its program service expenses goes toward legal defense for cops.

Republicans have also made Descano a target. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares has repeatedly attacked Descano’s office for turning the county “into a safe haven for criminals and a nightmare for law-abiding families” and his handling of cases involving transgender defendants.

The post Cop Group Alleges “Discrimination” by Prosecutor for Being Too Nice to Immigrants appeared first on The Intercept.

AIPAC board president Michael Tuchin hosted a private fundraiser for Fine on Monday at his Los Angeles law office, where an Intercept reporter was turned away in the building’s front lobby. “The Intercept should not be here at all,” said a building security guard, relaying a message from fundraiser organizers.

Three people entering the Century City high-rise office, however, confirmed that they were there to attend the Fine fundraiser. An attendee wearing a pin with adjoining U.S. and Israeli flags said she was there for the event and was whisked away by building security when asked why she supported Fine.

Related

Meet the U.S. Donors Funding ELNET, the AIPAC of Europe

After spending years exerting largely unchecked influence over elected U.S. officials, AIPAC appears to be putting more distance between itself and several of its preferred candidates this midterm cycle amid public outrage over Israel’s genocide in Gaza — and as a growing slate of progressive candidates position themselves explicitly against the group. But AIPAC and the broader pro-Israel lobby are still working to shape the next Congress to preserve the U.S.’s diplomatic alliance with Israel and maintain the steady flow of weapons shipments.

The day Fine entered the race in May, Jewish Insider reported that she had met with pro-Israel lobbying groups including AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel. The groups did not support Schakowsky, who was instead backed by the more centrist pro-Israel group J Street during her career — meaning the 14-term congresswoman’s retirement represented an opportunity for the lobby to install a more hard-line supporter of Israel.

Fine’s campaign, AIPAC, and Tuchin did not respond to a request for comment.

Fine is running in a crowded Democratic primary field that includes Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian American activist who has made her opposition to AIPAC spending and Israel’s genocide a central plank of her campaign; Daniel Biss, the current mayor of Evanston, Illinois; and Bushra Amiwala, a local school board member and activist. Abughazaleh and Biss led the pack in fundraising as of September, according to Federal Election Commission filings, pulling in $1.5 million and $1.3 million respectively. Amiwala has raised $642,000.

Fine had raised just over $660,000 by the same deadline — about half of it from close to 300 donors who AIPAC appears to have directed to her campaign, as the local outlet Evanston Now reported in October. The group sent at least two fundraising emails urging donors in its network to support Fine, after which AIPAC donors poured more than $300,000 into her campaign.

It’s not the first time the group has taken such an approach this cycle, including in Illinois. In the state’s 7th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. Danny Davis is retiring, AIPAC hasn’t endorsed a replacement — but its donors are funding real estate mogul Jason Friedman, The Intercept reported.

Related

Kat Abughazaleh on the Right to Protest

When asked about meeting with AIPAC prior to entering the race, Fine played down her support from the group, telling the university newspaper Loyola Phoenix in October that she was not pursuing its endorsement.

“Senator Fine has not received and is not seeking endorsement from J Street, AIPAC, or any Jewish organization,” her campaign said at the time. “She’s deeply aware of the diversity of political views in the Jewish community and in this district at large. The Senator’s priority is to represent all constituents, bridge divisions, continue standing up against antisemitism wherever it may appear, and continue to represent all members of her district.”

The post AIPAC Head Hosts Fundraiser for House Candidate Who Swears AIPAC Isn’t Backing Her appeared first on The Intercept.

The European Leadership Network, or ELNET, takes elected officials on networking trips to Israel, hosts events with members of European parliaments, and lobbies on foreign policy issues — much like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee operates in the U.S. Its co-founder, Raanan Eliaz, is a former AIPAC consultant and alumnus of the Israeli prime minister’s office. The group credits itself for key pro-Israel foreign policy decisions, including getting Germany to approve a $3.5 billion deal to purchase Israeli drones and rockets, the largest in Israel’s history. Since the October 7 attacks in Israel — and amid two years of genocide in Gaza — ELNET has broken fundraising records.

Funding ELNET’s work are more than 100 U.S. foundations, nonprofits, trusts, and charitable giving organizations that have poured at least $11 million into the group’s U.S. arm since 2022, an analysis by The Intercept found. This is the first major analysis of how U.S. donors are fueling the pro-Israel machine in Europe, exporting the same tactics that have for years helped AIPAC crush concern for Palestinians in the halls of power and advance unchecked support for Israel.

ELNET is smaller than AIPAC, but it operates in a smaller market, feeding a steady stream of pro-Israel material to European parliamentarians. While the U.S. gives more financial and military support to Israel than any country in the world, the European Union is Israel’s biggest trading partner — and holds critical sway over whether global political consensus stays on Israel’s side. Amid public outcry and cracks in European support over Israel’s genocide in Gaza, ELNET sees its work as more essential than ever.

“ELNET states clearly that their role is to legitimize and deepen economic ties with Israel, at a time when international law tells us we should be sanctioning Israel and sever trade ties,” said European Parliament member Lynn Boylan, an Irish representative from the Sinn Féin party. “As an EU lawmaker, I am very concerned that U.S. groups are seemingly successfully able to determine EU policy on Israel.”

Friends of ELNET, the group’s U.S. nonprofit arm, transfers almost all of its revenue to ELNET’s chapters around the globe. It raised more than $9.1 million in 2023, the last year for which its tax forms are publicly available, up from $7 million in 2022 and more than double its revenue from 2018.

The U.S. arm is chaired by Larry Hochberg, a Chicago philanthropist and former AIPAC national director who sits on the board of the nonprofit group Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. Its president is David Siegel, previously an Israeli diplomat, an AIPAC legislative writer, and an IDF officer. ELNET’s U.S. board members include donors who have given more than $170,000 to AIPAC; its super PAC, United Democracy Project; and the related pro-Israel group DMFI PAC since 2021. One of those board members, Jerry Rosenberg, is a member of AIPAC’s exclusive major-donor Minyan Club, according to his ELNET bio. European media have also reported on a handful of ELNET donors who have also supported President Donald Trump.

Top U.S. donors to Friends of ELNET include the William Davidson Foundation, founded by the late Michigan businessman, which has given $800,000 to the group since 2022; the Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust, founded by the couple to work toward “ensuring the future of the Jewish people and the State of Israel,” which gave just under half a million dollars in 2023; and the Ocean State Job Lot Charitable Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the northeastern chain of discount retail stores, which gave $445,000 in 2022. Representatives for the foundations did not respond to requests for comment.

Other major donors include the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, the family foundation for ELNET U.S. board member Joseph Feinberg; the National Philanthropic Trust; and the Diane and Guilford Glazer Foundation, each of which have given $675,000, $560,000, and $430,000 respectively since 2022. Jewish Federations in Palm Beach, Miami, Chicago, Atlanta, and San Francisco have given $443,000 altogether since 2022.

Those dollars have powered ELNET in its advocacy to transfer two drones to the IDF, cut off funding to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and push a EU resolution affirming Israel’s right to self-defense and calling for the eradication of Hamas.

Boylan, who chairs the European Parliament Delegation for relations with Palestine, told The Intercept that she was alarmed by the role U.S. donors are playing in lobbying European governments to back Israel.

“While it is not surprising that U.S. donors are funneling millions to influence EU policy on Israel, this demonstrates just how much European institutions are out of touch with their own citizens on the genocide in Gaza,” Boylan said.

“As more U.S. politicians refuse to accept money from warmongering groups like AIPAC, U.S donors appear to be increasingly sending more donations abroad in an attempt to curry support for the Israeli military across Europe,” said Beth Miller, political director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action. “It’s shameful that so many here in the U.S. play a key role in the ongoing apartheid and genocide against Palestinians.”

Many of the U.S. institutions directed funds to Friends of ELNET through donor-advised funds, or DAFs, which let donors make tax-exempt contributions through an intermediary and give them the choice to remain anonymous. DAFs aren’t allowed to contribute to lobbying efforts, but there are many ways around that prohibition, said Bella DeVaan, associate director of the charity reform initiative at the progressive think tank Institute for Policy Studies.

“It’s a way to rinse your name off of any kind of donation that could be perceived as controversial or something that you just want to keep anonymous publicly,” DeVaan said. DAFs also confer significant benefits for donors looking to reduce their tax burden.

The National Philanthropic Trust, the Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego, and the Jewish Federation of Atlanta all directed money to ELNET through DAFs. That’s not uncommon: A July report from the Institute for Policy Studies found that donors disproportionately use DAFs more than other funding sources for political giving.

“When you involve the sort of shell-game capacity of DAFs, it can become really difficult to trace direct impact,” DeVaan said. “That can really manifest in a lot of political consequences that I think the average taxpayer would not like to know that they’re subsidizing, because of the tax breaks that charitable givers get for their gifts.”

DeVaan said it was concerning that donors are using DAFs to support international lobbying efforts. Critics of Israel’s genocide in Gaza have called on institutions to clarify ethical guidelines around DAF distributions amid concerns about funding groups linked to the Israeli military. Pro-Israel advocates have also criticized DAF distributions to Palestine solidarity groups.

“No matter what kind of lobbying it is, at home or abroad, these implications are really concerning. For every gift an ultra-rich person gives to charity, the average taxpayer is chipping in an estimated 74 cents on the dollar,” said DeVaan. “Do we want to give people a tax break to amplify their influence around the world? I don’t think most people would agree with that.”

Related

How Does AIPAC Shape Washington? We Tracked Every Dollar.

Many of the same groups funneling money to ELNET’s U.S. nonprofit arm have also given to other pro-Israel organizations. Six foundations that have given more than $570,000 to Friends of ELNET since 2022 have given $344,800 to AIPAC over the same period. Donors to Friends of ELNET have also given more than $37.8 million to AIPAC’s educational arm, the American Israel Education Foundation, which sponsors trips to Israel for members of Congress. Michael Leffell, an investment firm founder and AIPAC donor whose foundation gave $50,000 to Friends of ELNET in 2017, has given $1.5 million to United Democracy Project since 2022. More than 50 ELNET donors have given $11.6 million to the Central Fund of Israel and $8.9 million to the Jewish National Fund since 2022 — both of which fund Israeli settler groups in the West Bank, where settlers have ramped up attacks on Palestinians since the October 7 attacks.

Friends of ELNET did not respond to a request for comment.

Thousands of Europeans protest each week to pressure their officials to stop the genocide in Gaza. “Their concerns are ignored in favour of organisations specifically established to defend Israel at all costs,” said Boylan.

“Aligning With the U.S. in Support of Israel”

After October 7, ELNET set to work arranging screenings of the attacks in European parliaments and embarking on a campaign that would rapidly elevate the group’s profile in the next two years. The group has arranged meetings between members and families of Israeli hostages, taken some 300 policymakers and opinion leaders on trips to Israel, and celebrated what it describes as its successful influence on European policy.

“Europe aligning with the U.S. in support of Israel is a monumental achievement and a reflection of ELNET’s critical work,” the group wrote in an October 2023 fundraising appeal to support “emergency solidarity missions” to Israel from European countries including France, Germany, the U.K., and Italy. “ELNET’s priority is to ensure that the unprecedented European military and diplomatic support for Israel remains strong for the duration of the war until Hamas is eradicated.”

Among its accomplishments since October 7, ELNET has pointed to its work to get European countries to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which defines criticisms of Israel as antisemitic, push European states to crack down on pro-Palestine protesters and ban certain protests, and secure the historic defense deal between Israel and Germany.

In its latest annual report from 2023, ELNET highlighted its work to pass the defense deal for Germany to purchase the Arrow 3 missile defense system, developed by Israel and the U.S. “ELNET arranged for German political leaders and officials to meet with Israeli officials and thus advance the requisite research and dialogue to consummate this historic deal,” the group wrote.

Eleven days after the October 7 attacks, ELNET brought a group of survivors to speak to members of the European Parliament, a lawmaking body for the EU. The next day, the European Parliament passed a resolution that called for a “humanitarian pause” in Gaza and for Hamas to be “eliminated.”

“Each ELNET office served as a conduit of factual and credible information to parliamentarians and policymakers across Europe by providing firsthand information about what happened on October 7,” the report read. “The day after ELNET brought Israeli survivors to speak at the European Parliament, an unprecedented resolution was passed backing Israel’s right to self-defense and calling for the elimination of Hamas.”

The group boasts a network of thousands of European and Israeli officials in its orbit and has chapters around the world including the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, and offices for Central and Eastern Europe and the EU & NATO. Friends of ELNET sends millions to ELNET’s global chapters each year — climbing from $2.4 million in 2020 to more than $6 million in 2023.

Varying financial reporting requirements across Europe make it difficult to account completely for ELNET’s global financial portfolio. Friends of ELNET conducts much of the fundraising for the group’s global chapters, but it’s not clear how much funding those chapters raise on their own. ELNET Germany recently announced it was launching its own Friends of ELNET Germany chapter. A 2023 filing with the transparency body for the EU lists Friends of ELNET as the only source of funding for ELNET’s chapter registered in Brussels. ELNET’s chapters for the EU & NATO and Germany did not respond to requests for comment.

Speaking to The Intercept, Boylan raised concerns about ELNET’s work to expand Israel’s arms industry ties to the Israeli military.

“It is also concerning that an organization who holds ‘strategic dialogues’ chaired by individuals formerly in IDF leadership positions are allowed to have any role in determining EU policy,” Boylan said, referring to former chairs of an ELNET forum that organizes “high-level strategic dialogues” between Europe and Israel. She said she would follow up with the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Parliament, about U.S. donors backing ELNET’s work pushing pro-Israel policies in Europe.

Related

EU Leader Calls to Sanction Israel as U.S. Progressives Push to End Arms Sales

Critics and journalists have also raised questions about how much money ELNET has received from the Israeli government, which reimbursed ELNET for a lobbying event last month at the French Parliament, the French outlet Mediapart reported. Elnet’s leadership and board members also have ties to the Israeli government and include two former advisers to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Before Friends of ELNET launched in 2012, ELNET received funding from the pro-Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, which has long been active in policing criticism of Israel on college campuses. StandWithUs transferred just under $1 million in assets to Friends of ELNET to launch the nonprofit in 2012.

While ELNET leaders have pointed to AIPAC as a model, Eliaz, Elnet’s co-founder, envisioned something with a much lower profile that didn’t carry strings attached to well-known U.S. donors. Since he left the group in 2017, ELNET’s U.S. support has almost doubled.

ELNET’s policy goals from its last annual report include continuing to expand the IHRA definition of antisemitism, working to “counter Israel’s delegitimization at the UN,” opposing the International Criminal Court investigation of Israel, and continuing its campaign against UNRWA, which Israel shut down in January.

“Judeo-Christian Civilization”

ELNET’s communications signal that it’s looking for ways to exploit a growing rift between the U.S. and Europe under Trump to Israel’s advantage, including seizing on the wave of anti-immigrant political parties in Europe.

In a February newsletter, a truncated version of which was posted to the Times of Israel as a blog, ELNET-Israel CEO Emmanuel Navon, previously a senior fellow at a right-wing Israeli think tank, wrote that a “widening gap” between the U.S. and Europe on Israel made ELNET’s job harder. But it wasn’t all bad news: The tension also afforded a new “diplomatic opportunity for Israel in Europe” amid the rise of “European parties with Trumpian sympathies and pro-Israel credentials.” Navon stepped down as ELNET-Israel CEO in March, but he still works closely with the group and supports Elnet’s work in France. He did not respond to a request for comment.

In his newsletter, Navon referenced a February speech by Vice President JD Vance to the Munich Security Conference in which the latter lambasted European leaders on issues from free speech to migration.

“As a non-partisan and apolitical NGO, ELNET cannot and must not take a public stance on government policies. But it should be aware of the current Zeitgeist and of its potential for Israel’s relations with Europe,” Navon wrote, including expanding markets for Israel’s defense industry. Then, he quoted Vance, who had asked: “What is the positive vision that animates this shared security compact that we all believe is so important?”

“This is a question to which Israel has a clear answer,” Navon wrote. “The core values of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian civilization, of which Israel is a pillar. It turns out that more and more European voters agree with that answer.”

The production of this investigation was supported by a grant from the Investigative Journalism for Europe (IJ4EU) fund.

The post Meet the U.S. Donors Funding ELNET, the AIPAC of Europe appeared first on The Intercept.

Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam is preparing for a rematch against Rep. Valerie Foushee, D-N.C., for the 4th Congressional District seat she lost by nine points in 2022. This time, the Israel lobby’s potential influence has shifted: Feeling the pressure from activists and constituents, Foushee has said she won’t accept money from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Allam, who launched her campaign Thursday with the backing of the progressive group Justice Democrats, told The Intercept that wouldn’t be a shift for her.

“I’ve never accepted corporate PAC or dark money, special interest group money, or pro Israel lobby group money,” said Allam, whose 2020 election to the county commission made her the first Muslim woman elected to public office in North Carolina.

The country’s top pro-Israel lobbying groups and the crypto industry spent heavily to help Foushee beat Allam in 2022, when they competed in the race for the seat vacated by former Rep. David Price, D-N.C. AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, and DMFI PAC, another pro-Israel group with ties to AIPAC, spent just under $2.5 million backing Foushee that year. The PAC funded by convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried also spent more than $1 million backing Foushee.

Related

Facing Voter Pressure, Swing-State Democrat Swears Off AIPAC Cash

After nearly two years of pressure from activists in North Carolina enraged by Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Foushee announced in August that she would not accept AIPAC money in 2026, joining a growing list of candidates swearing off AIPAC money in the face of a new wave of progressive challengers.

This time, if pro-Israel and crypto groups spend in the race, it’s on Foushee to respond, Allam said.

“If they decide to spend in this, then it comes down to Valerie Foushee to answer, is she going to stand by the promise and commitment she made to not accept accept AIPAC and pro-Israel lobby money?” Allam said. “This district deserves someone who is going to be a champion for working families, and you can’t be that when you’re taking the money from the same corporate PAC donors that are funding Republicans who are killing Medicare for all, who are killing an increased minimum wage.”

“You can look at my record to show that I am not just paying lip service to our shared progressive values but instead working to advance legislation like the ICE Badge Visibility Act, the Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act, and the Block the Bombs Act,” Foushee said in a statement to The Intercept, noting that she had been endorsed by North Carolina governor Josh Stein and former governor Roy Cooper. “I am ensuring the people of NC-04 have a voice in Washington by voting against the National Defense Authorization Act, the Republican Continuing Resolution, and the Big Ugly Bill that prioritized tax breaks for the wealthy over the needs of working families.”

Allam, who helped lead Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign in North Carolina, is the seventh candidate Justice Democrats are backing so far this cycle. The group — which previously recruited progressive stars including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. — is endorsing candidates challenging incumbents next year in Michigan, California, New York, Tennessee, Missouri, and Colorado. Justice Democrats is taking a more aggressive approach to primaries this cycle after only endorsing its incumbents last year and losing two major seats to pro-Israel spending. The group plans to launch at least nine more candidates by January, The Intercept reported.

Related

She Lost Her Job for Speaking Out About Gaza. Can It Power Her to Congress?

Allam unveiled her campaign with other endorsements from independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sunrise Movement, the Working Families Party, and Leaders We Deserve, a PAC launched by progressive organizers David Hogg and Kevin Lata in 2023 to back congressional candidates under the age of 35. She said she sees the local impacts of the Trump administration on working families every day in her work as a Durham County commissioner.

“What I’m hearing from our residents every single day is that they don’t feel that they have a champion or someone who is standing up and fighting for them at the federal level, and someone who is advocating for working families,” she said. “This is the safest blue district in North Carolina and this is an opportunity for us as a Democratic Party to have someone elected who is going to be championing the issues for working families — like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal — and has a track record of getting things done at the local level.”

Allam is rejecting corporate PAC money and running on taking on billionaires and fighting Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been carrying out raids and arresting residents in the district. She’s also supporting a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, and ending military aid to Israel. She began considering a run for office after a man murdered her friends in the 2015 Chapel Hill shootings.

Small dollar donors powered Allam’s 2022 campaign, when she raised $1.2 million with an average donation of $30. She’s aiming to replicate that strategy this cycle, she said.

“Trump is testing the waters in every way possible,” Allam said. “The only way that we’re going to be able to effectively fight back against Trump is by passing the Voting Rights Act, is by taking big corporate money out of our elections, by ending Citizens United. Because they’re the same ones who are fighting against our democracy.”

In its release announcing Allam’s campaign on Thursday, Justice Democrats criticized Foushee for taking money from corporate interests, including defense contractors who have profited from the genocides in Gaza and Sudan. “In the face of rising healthcare costs, creeping authoritarianism, and ICE raids, and the highest number of federal funding cuts of any district in the country, leadership that only shows up to make excuses won’t cut it anymore,” the group wrote.

Foushee served in the North Carolina state legislature for more than two decades before being elected to Congress in 2022. She first campaigned for Congress on expanding the Affordable Care Act and moving toward Medicare for All, passing public campaign financing and the Voting Rights Act, and a $15 minimum wage. Since entering Congress in 2023, Foushee has sponsored bills to conduct research on gun violence prevention, to expand diversity in research for artificial intelligence, establish a rebate for environmental roof installations, and support historically Black colleges and universities.

“I am proud of the legislation I have supported, the votes I have taken, and the services my office has provided to constituents,” Foushee said.

Foushee’s evolving stance on some Israel issues reflects a broader shift among Democrats under pressure from organizers and constituents.

Amid rising public outrage over the influence of AIPAC in congressional elections in recent years, Foushee faced growing criticism and protests in the district over her refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and her support from the lobbying group. After organizers tried to meet with her and held a demonstration blocking traffic on a freeway in the district, she signed onto a 2023 letter calling for a ceasefire but did not publicize her support for the letter or comment on it publicly, The News & Observer reported.

Related

Trying to Block Arms to Israel, Bernie Sanders Denounces AIPAC’s Massive Election Spending

At a town hall in August, an attendee asked Foushee if she regretted taking AIPAC money. In response, she said she would no longer accept money from the group. Three days later, she co-sponsored Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez’s Block the Bombs to Israel Act to limit the transfer of defensive weapons to Israel.

“We cannot allow AIPAC and these corporate billionaires to scare us into silence,” Allam said. “It’s actually our mandate to take them on directly, especially now as they’re losing their sway in the Democratic Party.”

Update: December 11, 2025, 1:06 p.m. ET
This story has been updated with a statement from Rep. Valerie Foushee.

The post AIPAC Spent Millions to Keep Her Out of Congress. Now, She Sees an Opening.  appeared first on The Intercept.

The progressive outfit Justice Democrats announced Thursday it was endorsing Kiros, who first launched her campaign in July. She’s the sixth candidate the group is backing in the upcoming midterm primaries, as Justice Democrats recharts its course after pro-Israel groups last cycle helped oust two of its star recruits, Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo.

In an interview with The Intercept, Kiros, who is 28, said watching Bowman and Bush lose their races and President Donald Trump take back the White House fueled despair among people her age. “But ultimately there are things that we can do, common-sense policies that we can pass — like Medicare for All, housing first, universal child care — that we just need people in Congress that actually represent us and not their wealthy donors to fight for,” she said.

Kiros has also been motivated by what she described as a “coercive market” that has chilled speech against genocide in Gaza. She decided to write the post that ultimately led to her firing after her experience protesting another genocide in her hometown of Tigray, Ethiopia. After she lost her job, she took on policy work in a Ph.D. program, which eventually motivated her to run for Congress.

“I got messages from hundreds of attorneys afterwards saying that they wish they could speak up too, but that they couldn’t afford to lose their job, that they couldn’t afford to lose their health insurance,” Kiros said. She doesn’t think there’s true freedom of expression exists “when you can’t speak out on basic human rights without it risking your job.”

In Congress, Kiros hopes to take on the issue of big money in politics — not just how it shapes policy, but how it has chilled speech on matters of human rights.

In her campaign against Rep. Diana DeGette, who was elected the year before she was born, Kiros is arguing the incumbent has grown more disconnected from her constituents over her 28 years in Congress — and embodies the Democratic Party’s failures to deliver in the face of a right-wing assault on civil liberties and the corporate and elite capture of bipartisan politics.

“DeGette is a symptom of a political system that rewards complacency, not courage,” Justice Democrats wrote in its endorsement of Kiros. The group has focused its 2026 strategy on challenging incumbents it says are beholden to corporate donors and trying to build a bench in Congress to fight authoritarianism, corporate super PACs, and billionaire-funded lobbying groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

In a statement to The Intercept, DeGette’s campaign spokesperson called her a “proven fighter,” highlighting that she was an original co-sponsor of Medicare for All and had secured millions of dollars in federal funding for her constituents in Denver.

“Diana has stood up to CEO’s, politicians, even presidents who stand in
the way of a better future for the American people,” wrote spokesperson Jennie Peek-Dunstone. “She’s chewed out oil executives on the House floor about soaring gas prices. She’s wiped the floor with RFK Jr. on multiple occasions and led a House delegation right to his office to seek answers for his backwards policies. And currently, she’s part of the House Democrats Litigation Working Group, where she’s coordinating legal strategies to push back against the Trump administration.”

DeGette’s campaign is highlighting what she describes as her experience fighting to protect the environment and expand access to health care. As a longtime incumbent, she has a clear fundraising advantage: DeGette has raised just under half a million dollars this year, more than three times the $125,000 Kiros has raised so far.

Kiros said most of her campaign funds have come from more than 2,300 individual donors, most of them small-dollar, with an average donation of $47, though the campaign’s latest FEC filings only reflect about 300 individual donors. (FEC records do not always include contributions from donors who have given under $200.)

In addition to Kiros, five other Democratic candidates are currently slated to challenge DeGette, including veteran Wanda James, a member of the University of Colorado Board of Regents.

Speaking to The Intercept, Kiros criticized DeGette for taking more than $5 million throughout her career from corporate PACs. Justice Democrats has also denounced her for taking money from lobbies for the pharmaceutical, fossil fuel, and defense industries. According to OpenSecrets, DeGette’s top career contributor is the law and lobbying firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, founded and chaired by attorney and former AIPAC Vice President and board member Norman Brownstein.

After taking crushing losses in two high-profile races in which AIPAC spent heavily last cycle, Justice Democrats has endorsed five other candidates so far this cycle, challenging incumbents in five states. That includes Bush in her comeback run for her old seat in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, state Rep. Justin Pearson in Tennessee’s 9th District, Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York’s 13th District, Angela Gonzales Torres in California’s 34th District, and state Rep. Donavan McKinney in Michigan’s 13th District. The group is “on track” to endorse at least 10 new candidates by January, according to its spokesperson, Usamah Andrabi.

The strategy is a shift from 2024, when Justice Democrats only endorsed its incumbents after making its name backing new insurgent candidates.

Related

Insurgent Democratic Candidates Are Ready to Run on Shutdown Betrayal

“We started this cycle with clear eyes about our intentions to fight back and win against AIPAC, crypto, and every other corporate lobby by challenging as many entrenched corporate incumbents and electing real, working-class champions to lead this party forward,” Andrabi said.

Growing disapproval of both the Democratic Party and Trump has proven how much Democratic voters want to use the primary system to change a party they see as bought by billionaires, Andrabi said.

“The momentum of the Democratic Party’s base is on our side and lobbies like AIPAC are losing sway over voters as their spending, influence, and right-wing network is exposed,” he said. “We’re not holding back this cycle and the establishment feels it.”

Fueling that disillusionment is the United States’ role in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, which Kiros has made a focus of her campaign. She’s calling for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and an Israeli arms embargo, and has called DeGette out of step with the district for not signing onto a bill pushing for the latter.

DeGette has a mixed record on Israel. She has described herself as a longtime supporter of Israel, taken some money from pro-Israel groups throughout her career, and met with members of AIPAC in her district.

In the weeks after the October 7, 2023 attacks, DeGette voted with 193 other Democrats against a Republican bill — which former President Joe Biden had threatened to veto — to provide aid to Israel, saying it ignored humanitarian needs in Gaza. She voted with the bulk of her party for other pro-Israel bills after October 7, including a hawkish bill affirming Israel’s right to self-defense with no mention of Palestinian civilians. DeGette did not co-sponsor an alternative resolution introduced by then-Rep. Bush and Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., which called for an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid to Gaza. This year, DeGette co-sponsored bills to prevent violence in the West Bank and restore funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

”It’s not enough that you vote the right way,” said Kiros. “This idea that any Democrat will do — it’s not enough anymore.”

“Diana has repeatedly and forcefully addressed the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and believes we need an immediate ceasefire along with a massive surge of humanitarian aid in Gaza,” Peek-Dunstone wrote. “Further, Diana has publicly stated that the United States should not be assisting an administration whose policies are leading to the widespread destruction and deaths of thousands of innocent people. Therefore, she plans to oppose future offensive weapons sales to Israel. She has long advocated for a balanced approach and the need for an end to this conflict for both Israelis and Palenstinians [sic].”

Update: December 5, 2025

This story has been updated to include a statement from the DeGette campaign sent after publication.

The post She Lost Her Job for Speaking Out About Gaza. Can It Power Her to Congress? appeared first on The Intercept.

Jason Friedman, one of 18 candidates vying to replace Davis in the March Democratic primary next year, has pulled ahead of the pack in fundraising. His campaign reported donations totaling over $1.5 million in its October filing with the Federal Election Commission.

About $140,000 of that money comes from major funders of pro-Israel groups, including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee PAC and its super PAC, United Democracy Project. The two groups spent more than $100 million on elections last year and ousted two leading critics of Israel from Congress. The pro-Israel donors’ support this year is an early sign that Friedman’s race is on AIPAC’s radar.

A former Chicago real estate mogul, Friedman launched his campaign in April, before Davis announced his retirement. From 2019 to 2024, he was chair of government affairs for the Jewish United Fund, a charitable organization that promotes pro-Israel narratives, noting on its website that “Israel does not intentionally target civilians,” “Israel does not occupy Gaza,” and “There is no Israeli ‘apartheid.’” Friedman has not made Israel a part of his campaign platform, but last month, the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs, a pro-Israel PAC, held an event for its members to meet him.

AIPAC has not said publicly whether it’s backing a candidate in the race, but more than 35 of its donors have given money to Friedman’s campaign. Among them, 17 have donated to the United Democracy Project, and eight have donated to both. Together, the Friedman donors have contributed just under $2 million to AIPAC and UDP since 2021.

That includes more than $1.6 million to UDP and more than $327,000 to AIPAC, with several donors giving six or five-figure contributions to the PACs. Friedman’s donors have also given $85,500 to DMFI PAC, the political action committee for the AIPAC offshoot Democratic Majority for Israel, and another $115,000 to the pro-Israel group To Protect Our Heritage PAC, which endorsed another candidate in the race, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. The Conyears-Ervin campaign and To Protect Our Heritage PAC did not respond to a request for comment.

Friedman is running largely on taking on President Donald Trump on issues from health care to education and the economy. His campaign website says he supports strong unions, access to education, reducing gun violence, and job training and support. Prior to his tenure leading his family real estate empire, Friedman worked in politics under former President Bill Clinton and for Sen. Dick Durbin on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Reached by phone, the pro-Israel donor Larry Hochberg told The Intercept that he was supporting Friedman because he thought he’d be a good candidate. “I’ll leave it at that,” Hochberg said.

Related

U.S. Nonprofits Funnel Millions to Israeli Army Volunteers

A former AIPAC national director, Hochberg sits on the board of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces and co-founded the pro-Israel advocacy group ELNET, which has described itself as the AIPAC of Europe. Hochberg has given $10,000 to AIPAC, $5,000 to DMFI PAC, and just under $30,000 to To Protect Our Heritage PAC. In September, he gave $1,000 to Friedman’s campaign. Asked about his support for AIPAC and DMFI, he told The Intercept: “I don’t think I want to say any more than that.”

Former Rep. Marie Newman, a former target of pro-Israel donors who represented Illinois’s nearby 3rd District and was ousted from Congress in 2022, criticized Friedman for the influx in cash.

“If you receive money from AIPAC donors who believe in genocide and are funding genocide, then in fact, you believe in genocide,” Newman told The Intercept. She’s backing another candidate in the race, gun violence activist Kina Collins, who ran against Davis three times and came within 7 percentage points of unseating him in 2022.

Friedman is running against 17 other Democratic candidates, including Collins and Conyears-Ervin. During Collins’s third run against Davis last year, United Democracy Project spent just under half a million dollars against her. Davis, who received support from a dark-money group aligned with Democratic leaders in his 2022 race, has endorsed state Rep. La Shawn Ford to replace him. Other candidates include former Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin, former Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins, immigrant advocate Anabel Mendoza, organizer Anthony Driver Jr., emergency room doctor Thomas Fisher, and former antitrust attorney Reed Showalter, who has pledged not to accept money from AIPAC.

Friedman’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The genocide in Gaza has aggravated fault lines among Democrats in Chicago. Last year, the Chicago City Council narrowly passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, with Mayor Brandon Johnson casting the tie-breaking vote. As chair of government affairs for the Jewish United Fund, Friedman signed a letter to Johnson last year from the group and leaders of Chicago’s Jewish community, saying they were “appalled” at the result. Friedman’s campaign did not respond to questions about his position on U.S. military funding for Israel or the war on Gaza.

At least 17 Friedman donors have given to the United Democracy Project, with contributions totaling over $1.6 million. That includes nine people who gave six-figure contributions to UDP and seven who gave five-figures. Twenty-nine Friedman donors have given to AIPAC PAC, including eight of the same UDP donors.

Related

Even Former AIPAC Democrats Are Signing On to Block Arms Sales to Israel

Among those supporters are gaming executive Greg Carlin, who has given $255,000 to UDP and gave $3,500 to Friedman’s campaign in April; investor Tony Davis, who has given $250,000 to UDP and also gave $3,500 to Friedman’s campaign in April; and attorney Steven Lavin, who has given $125,000 to UDP and gave $7,000 to Friedman’s campaign in June. Carlin, Davis, and Lavin did not respond to a request for comment.

Attorneys Douglas Gessner and Sanford Perl, who work at Friedman’s previous law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, have given $105,000 and $100,000 to UDP. Both have also given to AIPAC PAC: Gessner over $50,000 and Perl over $44,000. Gessner gave $3,000 to Friedman’s campaign in September, and Perl gave $3,400 in April. Gessner and Perl did not respond to requests for comment.

Three other donors who have each given $1 million to UDP have given to Friedman’s campaign: Miami Beach biotech executive Jeff Aronin, Chicago marketing founder Ilan Shalit, and Jerry Bednyak, a co-founder of Vivid Seats who runs a private equity company focused on e-commerce.

“You could be the nicest person in the world,” said Newman, the former Illinois congresswoman. “But if you’re taking money from people who are supporting a far right-wing government that believes in genocide and is executing a genocide, what does that say about you?”

Friedman’s campaign coffers saw six-figure boosts on three days in June and September — vast outliers compared to most days in his first quarter. Those kinds of fundraising boosts are often associated with a blast email from a supportive political group to its network of donors, according to a Democratic strategist with knowledge of the race. AIPAC did not respond to a request for comment about whether the group had sent such an email encouraging supporters to contribute to Friedman’s campaign.

Friedman’s fundraising boost has also come largely from the finance and real estate industries, where just under a quarter of his donors work. He has also given $36,750 of his own money to his campaign.

The post AIPAC Donors Back Real Estate Tycoon Who Opposed Gaza Ceasefire for Deep-Blue Chicago Seat appeared first on The Intercept.

But in order to implement his sweeping agenda, Mamdani will have to confront an establishment that tried to keep him out of office and tackle one of the key issues it sought to leverage against him: the New York Police Department and its powerful union.

Related

Zohran Mamdani Beats Andrew Cuomo in Victory for the Left in NYC Mayoral Race

As Mamdani’s opponents seized throughout the race on his past criticism of police, his public safety pledges on the campaign trail reflected an attempt to thread the needle between the NYPD and its critics — strengthening the power of the department’s civilian oversight board, keeping NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch in her job, and building a Department of Community Safety to “ensure that no New Yorker falls through the cracks of our social safety net.” Together, the proposals simultaneously aim to make it harder for police to escape accountability, preserve one of the department’s institutionalist leaders, and take certain responsibilities away from police as a way to lighten their load. 

The Department of Community Safety, Mamdani’s marquee public safety proposal, would do violence prevention, crisis response, and mental health work by deploying non-police personnel throughout the city. The idea, successfully modeled in other cities, is to free police officers from spending time on those issues and let them focus instead on responding to the most violent crime.

According to Alex Vitale, a sociology professor who runs the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College, police have “mixed feelings” about the proposal. On one hand, rank-and-file cops largely don’t want to be in the business of responding to mental health crises. On the other, they’re part of an establishment coalition that may not want to support Mamdani for political reasons. 

The city’s influential police union, which represents 50,000 retired and active police officers from the New York City Police Department, has said Mamdani’s plan won’t make a dent in their workload. “The NYPD responds to roughly 180,000 calls involving an emotionally disturbed person each year, out of roughly 9 million total 911 calls,” said NYC Police Benevolent Association spokesperson John Nuthall in a statement to The Intercept. “That means that mental health emergencies constitute less than 2% of calls the NYPD responds to.” 

“We are really focused on a positive vision for change New York City,” said Grace Mausser, a co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, at the Mamadani campaign’s election night party at the Paramount Theater in Brooklyn. “We know governing is going to be complicated, we knew it when we ran for mayor that it meant electing someone who was going to be in charge of the NYPD, but we can’t let complications stop us from taking power. Certainly the oligarchs don’t, so the working people can’t either.”

The Mamdani administration will also have to determine who will run the agency, who will staff it, how it might affect the next round of police union contract negotiations, and what relationship it will have with the NYPD and its oversight body, the Civilian Complaint Review Board. That, according to Mac Muir, a former CCRB investigator, represents “a serious bureaucratic and infrastructural challenge ahead.”

While Muir said the new department seems “designed to succeed,” he noted that it’s never been tested on New York City’s scale — or with a police force as big and influential as the NYPD. “It appears very clear that that entity could only succeed with an effective relationship with the NYPD,” Muir said.

Even if rank-and-file officers get on board with Mamdani’s plan, his administration will likely confront obstacles from department and union leaders.

“His biggest issue, in my opinion, is going to be the extreme recalcitrance and push back from the rank-and-file members of the department and their union leaders to change and to reform,” said Sarena Townsend, the city’s former deputy commissioner for intelligence and investigation. Townsend was pushed out of city government under Mayor Eric Adams after she refused to dismiss a backlog of use-of-force cases in city jails, and she’s currently leading whistleblower lawsuits by former NYPD officers who say they were forced out after reporting alleged corruption and misconduct within the department.

“In situations where the rank and file don’t trust the mayor or the decision that the mayor is making, or their leadership,” Townsend said, “the rank and file just won’t do the things that they’re being asked to do, or they’ll revolt in other types of ways.”

Related

Bill de Blasio Promised to Change the NYPD. His Courage Failed Him, and Us.

Under Bill de Blasio, a progressive and vocal Mamdani supporter, the police union battled the former mayor to such a ferocious extent that he largely backed down from many attempts at police reform. 

If the cops don’t like Mamdani — whether on the grounds of his specific ideas or the leftist policies he represents — they can attempt to stymie him in a variety of ways, Vitale pointed out.

“Mamdani is going to have to dismantle a lot of phony task forces and committees,” he said, “and also deal with a workforce that may not share his vision on public safety.”

The Mamdani campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

While police present a challenge for Mamdani within New York City’s political establishment, advocates for reform are skeptical about the way he’s distanced himself from some of his past criticism of police and his promise to keep Tisch in place as commissioner.

Tisch, Adams’s fourth appointed NYPD commissioner, has pushed police to more aggressively go after so-called “quality of life” crimes — which Mamdani has said he would divert police away from. 

“We’ve seen that Commissioner Tisch and perhaps Mayor Mamdani have serious distinctions in their political perspectives,” Muir said. “Can they sit down and identify mutual interests and work together?”

Related

Zohran Mamdani Won’t Defund the Police. The Movement Can Grow With Him Anyway.

To many political observers, Mamdani’s decision to keep Tisch looked like an attempt to navigate a mainstream political climate that has become openly hostile to calls to rein in overpolicing and ballooning police budgets, and to placate detractors who warned his leadership would trigger a crime wave. His public safety plan largely focused on taking certain powers and responsibilities away from police, including getting rid of the NYPD’s controversial protest response group, and he was the only candidate in the general election who didn’t call to increase the size of the NYPD. 

But Mamdani didn’t really run on the police reform agenda voters have seen proliferate in the post-2020 campaign era, Vitale said. That strategy was a response to largely failed liberal efforts to rein police over the last several decades. 

“He didn’t discuss accountability, training oversight, all the kinds of procedural reforms that have dominated liberal discourse around policing,” Vitale said. “We’ve been trying it in various forms for 10 years, and we really don’t have anything to show for it. Why waste political capital on symbolic superficial reforms that the police department is going to be up in arms about?”

That tack largely kept the police union out of the race, Vitale said. The union endorsed Adams in 2021 and did not endorse this cycle. 

While Mamdani did say he wanted to make the Civilian Complaint Review Board’s decisions binding — rather than letting the commissioner have an effective veto on police discipline — he didn’t make it a central plank of his campaign. “If Mamdani had spent a lot of political capital talking about doubling the size of the CCRB and creating new accountability mechanisms and forcing more training, I think that might have pushed them into the race more forcefully,” Vitale said.

Related

There Are So Many Armed Cops on Subways That Now They’re Shooting Each Other

Strengthening the CCRB’s power would require dealing a blow to Tisch: As NYPD commissioner, she currently has the power to overrule many of the avenues that will become available for Mamdani to enforce oversight and police accountability. While Tisch has taken police accountability and discipline seriously in some cases, she also shielded a lieutenant from an NYPD disciplinary judge’s CCRB-backed recommendation that he be fired after he shot and killed a man during a traffic stop.

”Am I excited about Tisch? Not super,” said Mausser, the DSA co-chair. “But there also was not a socialist police commissioner waiting in the wings. So if Tisch is committed to working with Zohran, committed to doing things like building a Department of Community Safety, then we’re gonna be open to working with that department to make it happen.”

These dynamics leave substantial room for pressure from reform advocates, who said they’ll be watching Mamdani’s administration closely for who he picks to lead his Department of Community Safety and how he responds to the next challenges facing the city, whether it be a National Guard deployment or a police shooting.

“If Mamdani comes into office and does not follow through on his promises, yes, we will protest outside of City Hall, just like we did again with de Blasio,” said Jeremy Saunders, co-executive director of the grassroots advocacy group VOCAL-NY. VOCAL supported de Blasio early on in his administration and put stronger pressure on him when he shied away from some police reform proposals, including making it a crime for police to use chokeholds and not policing fare evasion on the subway.

But ultimately, Saunders said, he’s concerned about bigger forces outside New York City.

“What are we going to do when the federal government is denying us our tax dollars or deploying the military or the National Guard here?” Saunders said. “I think we have less to worry about right now from a Mayor Mamdani than we do from the people who want a Mayor Mamdani to fail.”

Update: November 5, 2025, 8:50 a.m. ET
This story has been updated to include comments from NYC DSA co-chair Grace Mausser.

The post Zohran Mamdani Avoided Campaigning Against the Police. Will They Work With Him? appeared first on The Intercept.

“It can see potentially directly into any part of our house,” Sauve told The Intercept.

The camera is one of tens of thousands that feed into a massive warrantless surveillance system that police use to track and profile millions of New Yorkers each day.

Many of the cameras — including those mounted to drones and helicopters, as well as stationary cameras like the one just outside Wridt and Sauve’s bedroom and living room — are owned, operated, and bear the logo of the NYPD.

Footage from tens of thousands of other privately owned cameras, however, like those posted outside of shops, businesses, and banks, are also made available to the NYPD through a little-publicized tool that holds one of the world’s biggest networks of security cameras: the city’s Domain Awareness System.

Wridt and Sauve are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed Monday against the city of New York, which holds responsibility for the NYPD, over the department’s expansive surveillance machine — one of the largest in the world — that their attorneys say violates their First and Fourth Amendment rights to free association, expression, and privacy. (The NYPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

The suit is the first of its kind of take on the NYPD surveillance system.

“We see state and local police departments effectively being coopted, our data being used and abused by other government agencies,” said attorney Albert Cahn of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, one of the attorneys representing Sauve and Wridt in the case.

There’s at least one case the plaintiffs’ attorneys know of in which data originally collected in the Domain Awareness System was eventually shared with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch was an architect of the surveillance apparatus, which police use to join data from public and private sources across the city, collecting information on people’s identities, their biometric data, their daily movements, their social media activity, and people with whom they associate. The NYPD uses that information, combined with forms of machine learning, to build profiles that construct the activities, religious and political affiliations, and thoughts and beliefs of millions of people — and stores the information indefinitely.

Attorneys in the New York case, filed by Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward and Maazel, hope it will be the start of a wider effort to take on police surveillance networks in other cities where police departments, with bipartisan support and unprecedented amounts of cash, have built up their surveillance capacity and weaponizing it to political ends.

“The NYPD may be the worst offender, but they’re also a model for the nearly 18,000 state and local police departments across the country that are increasingly acting like mini-NSA and CIA operations,” Cahn said. “American policing runs on data.”

“You Are Being Watched”

The reach of the surveillance is largely unknown to many city dwellers, but the Domain Awareness System received public scrutiny during the police search for Luigi Mangione, who was tracked using the multitude of cameras throughout the city to which the NYPD has access.

“You are being watched,” the plaintiffs wrote in their suit. “Today, throughout New York City, the police are monitoring, tracking, and cataloguing you. Nearly everywhere. Nearly all the time.”

All that surveillance is made possible by the Domain Awareness System, they wrote: “It is a voyeuristic policing platform that unifies into one centralized network more than a dozen technologies — public and private — including video camera systems, tracking technologies, biometric tools, data and financial aggregation analytics, and digital communications monitors.”

Companies like Microsoft, Clearview AI, Patternizr, and Dataminr have all bolstered the NYPD’s surveillance system, which feeds into controversial policing tools like the citywide gang database and ShotSpotter. Attorneys hope the lawsuit will shed light on other private companies and federal agencies that have access to data collected by the NYPD.

“There is no one firm that is really enabling this mass surveillance,” Cahn said. “That’s what’s key to this lawsuit.”

Related

Kathy Hochul Is Ready to Spend Millions on New Police Surveillance

Through the system, the NYPD “collects the identity, location, banking details, vehicle information, social media activity, and friend groups of all who live in or enter the city. It combines these entries with civil and criminal records and converts them into digital profiles, reconstructing, in effect, the private lives of millions. It is virtually impossible to avoid,” according to the suit.

“Pervasive, AI-super-charged surveillance is a threat to every New Yorker’s privacy,” said O. Andrew F. Wilson, an attorney with Emery Celli Abady Brinckerhoff Ward & Maazel. “Protecting safety should never come at the expense of our constitutional rights and the basic expectation that our private lives remain private.”

Previous lawsuits and legislative battles have targeted smaller pieces of the surveillance system, but the new case focuses on the broader constitutional harm that plaintiffs say is greater than the sum of its parts.

“Aggregated data enables the NYPD to uncover constitutionally protected activity,” says the suit, “such as political expression, religious practice, or private association, that would be unknowable from any single source.”

“Not a Hot Spot for Crime”

Since the camera was first installed outside Wridt and Sauve’s home in April 2022, the couple said it’s changed the character of her neighborhood and negatively affected their mental health and well-being.

“We had to mirror tint all our windows. We can’t open them because if we do, we’re exposed,” Sauve said. “There’s very hot days. I like having my windows open. I can’t even do that.”

Wridt said her house no longer feels like a home.

“Your home is supposed to be your safe space, and I feel very violated,” she said. “It’s constant. It never goes away, that level and feeling of violation.”

The couple said the surveillance has been a point of contention and disagreement among their neighbors. They’ve notified others who live on their block and engaged some of them in their efforts to get rid of the cameras.

Related

License Plate Surveillance, Courtesy of Your Homeowners Association

Some people are uncomfortable with the cameras and don’t spend as much time outside on the block anymore, Wridt said. And, while their neighborhood hasn’t had an issue with crime, others see it as their own personal security system.

“Our approach has been to educate our neighbors and let them decide how they would like to proceed,” Wridt said. “There’s no crime on our block. This is not a hot spot for crime. So of course your brain is going to go in other directions — why is it there?”

At first, Sauve and Wridt weren’t sure where the cameras feeds went. When they learned that they were collected into the city’s wider surveillance network, they felt repulsed. Now, Suave worries that lack of public knowledge about the Domain Awareness System breeds complacency and gives authorities the space to entrench it.

“It’s like my greatest concern and my greatest fear was confirmed,” Sauve said. “People that are oblivious to the whole surveillance state we’re in — they’re getting more and more comfortable with it being there.”

The post An NYPD Camera Points Directly Into Their Bedroom. They’re Suing the City Over It. appeared first on The Intercept.

Then new polling dropped, and it wasn’t. Even after the blowup over his tattoo and history of Reddit posts, Platner is leagues ahead of Mills, who was already a member of the Maine House of Representatives when Platner, drunk, 23, and on shore leave from the Marines, stumbled into a tattoo shop in Croatia and got an inked symbol whose significance, by his telling, he didn’t grasp for the next 18 years. (Amid a torrent of news this week, he got it covered up.)

Evaluations of Platner’s political viability have raised a bigger question for Democrats looking to capture the kind of energy he’s drawn among voters in Maine. If the problem is that Democrats are too polished, too pro-corporate, and too catered to the elite, the solution just might be the rugged outsider, the edgy everyman — perhaps, even, the provocateur. And if the surge in support Platner saw in the wake of the scandal suggests anything, it’s that voters are so sick of what the Democratic establishment has to offer, they might look past a Nazi tattoo.

But for those on the left who find themselves desperate for a disruption of the party’s uninspiring baseline, it raises the question: Is this the best they can do?

Platner isn’t the first of this style of brash, populist, mixed-bag of a candidate to try to woo the left in recent years. Sen. John Fetterman, several of whose ex-staffers have joined Platner’s team, was once heralded with similar optimism. The bald, gruff giant who wore shorts to the Capitol was at one point in time lauded as the model for the party’s future. Today, he’s one of the least popular Democrats in the Senate — among both voters and staffers leaving his office at a high clip. He’s amassed Republican donors since leaning hard into his pro-Israel tack since October 7. And he’s repeatedly voted against the majority of his party to work hand in hand with President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress.

On some of the left’s key policy issues, the two are almost diametrically opposed. What Fetterman once lacked in substance, Platner makes up for in having experience as a local activist and clear policy stances on issues from Medicare for All to the genocide in Gaza. Fetterman, who once skated by heavier scrutiny of his stance on Israel, has since closely aligned himself with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the nation’s leading pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Platner’s history as a contractor for a company previously known as Blackwater is one detail several critics have pointed to as the place where the pro-populist base might have ordinarily drawn the line if it weren’t for Platner’s staunch anti-imperial and anti-genocide stance.

“Take a look at our policy platform,” said a spokesperson for the Platner campaign, objecting to comparisons to Fetterman. “Watch Graham speak on the stump. There’s a lot of substance. He takes questions across the state and listens to people’s hopes, fears, dreams, aspirations and questions, and gives them answers that are stuck in real time, not to mention an expansive policy platform online.”

While the similarities may reside in their aesthetics, that becomes significant when Democrats use those aesthetics to imbue authority, said Amanda Litman, co-founder and president of Run for Something, which recruits and backs candidates to run for state and local office with the aim to build a bench for national races like the one in Maine.

“That is something really interesting — who is deemed authentic and who can credibly speak as a voice of the people. This particular type of brawly white dude with tattoos who can speak the visual language of what we associate with the working class,” Litman said. “This is really a moment for us to collectively gut check — who gets permission to be seen as authentic? And who gets permission to be a little unkempt?”

That’s no reason to tear Platner down, Litman added.

“Here is a candidate who has very clearly excited part of the electorate that we want to reach,” Litman said. “To take glee in tearing him down as opposed to curiosity about what we can learn from that and bring to our candidate of choice, is why we lose.”

Though they wield it to divergent ends, Platner and Fetterman have both embraced a strategy of leaning into the criticism online. In Fetterman’s case, that has meant sharing increasingly bloodthirsty posts supporting Israel throughout its genocide on Gaza, while staff and constituents defect and implore him to stop.

Platner — who has apologized for both the tattoo and the posts — has shared other old posts “from the Reddit files,” as Platner has described them, and reshared them as evidence of his conviction on other issues, from misogyny and homophobia in the Marines to veterans’ mental health.

“Something I’m proud of from my internet history? I spent a lot of time online encouraging other veterans to also get help through the VA,” Platner’s campaign posted to his Facebook page on Sunday. “Because I knew even then that it was literally saving my life. Being honest and vulnerable helps others start down the same path.”

Though Platner is feeling the love now, there are months to go before Maine’s ranked-choice Democratic primary in June — and over a year until the party’s nominee would face off against Susan Collins.

The field is crowded with 12 other candidates, but the race is still largely seen as a contest between Platner and Mills over the path voters will choose for the future of the Democratic Party, and whether that choice will be enough to upset Collins, a three-decade incumbent.

“I’m convinced because the people in Maine are convinced. After all this went down we had 500 people at a capacity town hall. We had 100 people outside waiting to hear him speak,” said the Platner campaign spokesperson. “I’m convinced, because we continue to hold town halls across the state that are at capacity in rural areas, in bigger cities, in smaller towns.”

Related

The Struggle for the Future of the New York Democratic Party

Much of the coverage of the race has framed it as one of the many upcoming litmus tests on how Democrats handle a base that is largely rejecting its pro-Israel stance. While Platner has staked out the position as the candidate most critical of that status quo, Mills, a 77-year-old veteran of the Democratic establishment, has made pro-Israel statements but has not yet discussed how her campaign would approach the issue.

Last year, Mills’s campaign manager Chelsea Brossard took a trip to Israel funded by AIPAC’s educational wing. Brossard previously managed the failed gubernatorial campaign of AIPAC ally Rep. Josh Gottheimer in New Jersey and also worked as his chief of staff.

The Mills campaign did not respond to The Intercept’s requests for comment.

Platner’s supporters are betting that voters’ growing frustration with Democrats over both the party’s historic unconditional support for Israel amid the genocide in Gaza and its deference to establishment picks over outsiders who have nonetheless energized the base will outweigh any concerns about his recent campaign revelations. Platner has raised $3 million so far, spoken to crowds of thousands of people at rallies around Maine, and earned the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — whose support didn’t appear to waver after the tattoo scandal, either.

The spokesperson said Platner’s image isn’t necessarily the model Democrats should seek in every race. “The Democratic Party should be running candidates to appeal to a broad, broad swath of the electorate in their home state, or in their district, or whatever they may look like,” they said. “There’s not a one-size-fits-all rule book.”

The post The Left Put Its Faith in Graham Platner. Will He Break Its Heart? appeared first on The Intercept.

The aggressive, nationwide law enforcement regime, all taking place under orders from the White House, amounts to what scholars, attorneys, and now a federal judge say are steps toward the creation of a national police force. And the ranks of ICE partners won’t be filled with just local cops: In at least three states, the administration is joining forces with agencies typically tasked with environmental and marine protection, lottery control, and gaming to target immigrants.

“This is quite a common tactic,” said Charis Kubrin, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies immigration and crime. ”There’s this idea that we’re going to get local, not just police officers, but nurses and teachers and other public officials involved in enforcing immigration laws.”

It started largely with immigration, using federal agents and a little-remarked-upon program known as 287(g) to funnel funding to local law enforcement for partnerships. The widespread ICE incursions and local police partnerships, however, have also been justified by the myth of an immigrant crime wave.

“The research is pretty unequivocal that these policies have no impact on public safety.”

“There is this moral panic now about migrant crime. This is rhetoric that is at odds generally with what we know about immigration and crime,” Kubrin said. “The research is pretty unequivocal that these policies have no impact on public safety whatsoever.”

“We didn’t really need this increased cooperation,” she said. “The foundational assumption of this widespread immigrant criminality upon which all of these policies and practices are based, is patently not true.”

Related

Trump’s Trial Run for a Police State

Recruiting and paying local police to do immigration work, however, is just one part of the bigger project of creating such a national police force, said the American Civil Liberties Union’s Naureen Shah. And critics are worried that with Trump’s willingness to leverage state power for his own ends, such a security force could become a tool for carrying out the president’s political agenda.

Shah, who leads the ACLU’s policy and advocacy work on immigration, said, “Their larger project is to blur the lines between different law enforcement agencies in the military and create one national police force that is essentially under the command of the president.”

Local Partners

By funneling money to local police to do immigration work that falls under the federal government’s purview, Trump is effectively bolstering a police force answerable to his own authority by slowly buying up state and local police on a massive scale. The administration announced last month that 1,000 agencies had partnered with ICE to help target people for deportation.

Related

A County Sheriff’s Election in North Carolina Has Become a Referendum on ICE’s Deportation Machine

The money is coming through a program that was falling out of favor prior to Trump’s first term: the 287(g) program, named for the section of the Immigration and Nationality Act that forms the legal basis for local partners to detain and begin the process of deporting people targeted by the federal government.

For an administration eager to increase its sway over local law enforcement, immigration makes for a good starting point because the government has allocated astronomical sums of cash toward arresting, detaining, and deporting immigrants.

Paired with Trump’s military deployments to U.S. cities, the expansion of federal control over local police is the first step down a slippery slope, said Shah.

“It starts with immigration, and it’s through immigration, but it’s not limited to immigration.”

“They’re having federal law enforcement agencies scale up taskforces with state and local law enforcement so that when they talk about deploying into whatever city it is, they are not deploying on their own just as an invading force,” she said. “It starts with immigration, and it’s through immigration, but it’s not limited to immigration.”

The Fall and Rise of 287(g)

287(g) agreements were on the decline before Trump was first elected in 2016. During his 2020 campaign, former President Joe Biden pledged that he would end all 287(g) agreements made by Trump. And, in recent years, local sheriffs ran for office on promises to refuse to work with ICE.

“There’s a reason why the federal government has largely been tasked with policing immigration, and that’s why there was a lot of resistance to 287(g) including among police chiefs,” said Kubrin, the UC Irvine professor.

Both tacks to reduce the agreements faltered. Biden ended a handful of contracts but largely left the agreements in place. And political pressure on law enforcement mounted to form agreements. Several Republican governors, for instance, sued sheriffs who refused to work with ICE and, in some cases, won cooperation with Trump’s deportation agenda.

Now, the mixture of financial incentives and politics are driving a surge. Since Trump took office, partnerships that deploy state and local police to go after immigrants have increased 600 percent.

Related

Trump’s Budget Just Passed the Senate. Brace for a Massive Increase in ICE Raids.

The number of law enforcement agencies signing on to aid Trump’s deportation machine is surging in part because local police agencies strapped for cash welcome additional funding. The Department of Homeland Security announced in September that it would pay out “performance awards” and fully reimburse police for annual salary and benefits for each 287(g) officer, including partial overtime coverage.

ICE is also offering signing bonuses of up to $50,000, along with student loan forgiveness, for new recruits, and airing ads to attract police in at least a dozen cities.

In addition to shoring up their finances, law enforcement agencies are also responding directly to political pressure from the White House.

“I think it has to do with political pressure for these jurisdictions to get involved,” Kubrin said. “There’s lots of political pressure.”

Much of the narrative around recruiting police to take on Trump’s deportation agenda has taken for granted that police should be helping ICE carry out their work, said the ACLU’s Shah. It’s not so much that ICE doesn’t have adequate resources, it’s that they need local police on their side to carry out Trump’s political agenda.

“They’re grabbing for local police because local police are all over the place,” Shah said. “It’s very linked to the larger threats of authoritarianism in the country, and I don’t see that in any of the coverage.”

More Than Just Cops

The massive, nationalized police force taking shape as Trump expands his reach into state and local agencies around the country is not limited to just police.

In Florida, for instance, the Trump administration has active 287(g) agreements with other state agencies, including the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Department of Environmental Protection law enforcement division, the Gaming Control Commission, and the Department of Lottery Services. Wildlife commissions in Louisiana and Virginia are also partnering with the administration to target immigrants for deportation, as well as Virginia’s Marine Resources Commission. (A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources said the agency has not been requested to participate in any activities related to its 287(g) agreement since it entered into the partnership this summer.)

Since April, the administration has also partnered with university police or trustees for at least nine Florida state universities.

Partnering with agencies that aren’t traditionally focused on law enforcement is part of a strategy to enlist local officials outside of police in enforcing immigration laws, said Kubrin. The same strategy shaped laws like Arizona’s infamous S.B. 1070 migrant racial profiling law and others modeled after it in states like Georgia and Indiana.

Kubrin said she harbored a serious worry about eventually having to identify undocumented students in her own UC Irvine classes.

“It’s 10 times worse,” she said, “when you’re asking medical officials and teachers to be also policing immigration.”

The Invasion

The creep of federal control into state and local police departments comes as Trump has sent more than 35,000 troops to cities around the country. In a rambling address to military leaders earlier this month, Trump called to use American cities as training grounds for the military to fight a “a war from within.”

In a ruling last month against Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to Los Angeles, a federal judge wrote that Trump had used the troops as his own police force and styled himself as chief.

“Almost three months after Defendants first deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles, 300 National Guard members remain stationed there,” the judge wrote. “Moreover, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country—including Oakland and San Francisco, here in the Northern District of California—thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”

Though Trump’s efforts to deploy the National Guard to Portland and Chicago have met legal roadblocks, the president is signaling that more cities could see National Guard deployments in the coming months. Several states have also agreed to use the National Guard to assist ICE.

None of it is likely to do much, Kubrin said.

“These policies and programs are not cashing in on the promise that they will lower crime rates,” Kubrin said. “But they are doing potential harm in communities.”

“Mass shootings, gun violence, gender based violence, corporate crime,” she said. “Immigrant crime is a very small slice of the crime problem.”

The post Trump “National Police Force” Built on ICE Partnerships With Local Agencies Like… Wildlife Commissions? appeared first on The Intercept.

The critiques almost perfectly contradict the flack Mamdani has gotten from the political establishment to his right, long considered the biggest barrier in the Queens assembly member’s path to Gracie Mansion. His closest competitor, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, attacked Mamdani in a debate Thursday night on the grounds that he “won’t denounce ‘globalize the intifada,’” claiming the phrase meant “kill all Jews.” 

Mamdani has been hailed as a uniquely talented political communicator, but it’s his response to the invocation of that protest cry that has repeatedly drawn ire from his left and his right as he attempts to toe the line.

“I learned that this phrase evokes many painful memories,” Mamdani said Thursday night. “And in hearing that and the distance between that impact and the rationale that some use of saying it, of speaking about the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, is why I said that I would discourage this language, language that I do not use.” 

After Mamdani made similar remarks to Al Sharpton on MSNBC last month, one user wrote on X that he had thrown the movement for Palestine “under the bus.” “Zohran is a zionist,” commented another. Some have said they’d rather see Cuomo win than Mamdani get elected and let them down. 

While Mamdani’s most outspoken critics on the left likely represent only a tiny share of the local voting base, they help illustrate the ongoing identity crisis within the Democratic Party, where a party establishment long beholden to Israel struggles to adjust to its supporters’ overwhelming opposition to the genocide in Gaza.

He has drawn ire over his reported remarks to a room of Jewish leaders in New York that he would not condition employment in his administration on a person’s stance on Zionism. A New York Times magazine profile characterized him as “not anti-Zionist.”

Related

Zohran Mamdani Shows Democrats How Not to Take the Bait

Still, the mayoral candidate has staked out a position far more critical of Israel than almost any Democratic politician with his level of prominence and — likely — success. When Cuomo slammed Mamdani Thursday night for invoking Israel’s occupation of Palestine, he responded that “the occupation is a reference to international law and the violation of it, which Mr. Cuomo has no regard for because he signed up to be Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal defense team during the course of this genocide.” (Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate in the race, chimed in with praise for President Donald Trump in brokering the recent ceasefire in Gaza, reminding the moderators: “It’s a debate of three, do we acknowledge that?”)

The concerns from the left are symptomatic of a movement that has grown understandably disillusioned with electoral politics. Some of the critics are likely worried that New Yorkers who turned out in droves to support Mamdani this summer have been hoodwinked by another Democrat voicing sympathy for the Palestinian cause when it’s politically convenient while trying at the same time to please his pro-Israel detractors. But they may also be urging him toward a political posture that baits his biggest critics in the mainstream.

“I believe it is a very small collection of very principled people on the internet combined with bots,” said a Democratic strategist in New York. While the strategist dismissed the significance of the criticism, they also requested anonymity in order to speak freely.

Mamdani could respond more forcefully to the criticisms from his right: by insisting on protesters’ rights — now increasingly under attack by the Trump administration — to use the phrase to call for Palestinian freedom. Had he done so, he would likely have invited another news cycle focused on his refusal to address a phrase he had never uttered, along with fears that some Jewish New Yorkers say they harbor about his potential election. He would have given New York Democratic leaders like Sen. Chuck Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries a tempting reason to further delay their support. 

Mamdani’s responses, though, have reinforced the frustrations of many pro-Palestine advocates on the left — that ceding ground on what constitutes acceptable speech on Palestine puts the entire campaign to end both Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and its genocide in Gaza at risk.

Related

Kathy Hochul Endorsed Zohran Mamdani. Will Top Democrats Join Her?

Mamdani’s path to success as mayor of New York City rests on far more than how people perceive his stance on Israel, and he has more to worry about than how he’s perceived online. He is being tested as a new standard bearer for the Democratic Party — earning the endorsements, while Schumer and Jeffries hold out, of New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, the de facto leader of the state party, and Attorney General Letitia James, a high-profile Trump foe now fighting an indictment by the federal Department of Justice.

The question of whether a rising star like Mamdani can effectively stake out a pro-Palestine stance while succeeding in mainstream electoral politics is high on many Democrats’ minds. A growing part of the party’s base is refusing to support candidates who cave to pro-Israel pressure campaigns. And a growing number of Democrats, including recipients of money from the country’s leading pro-Israel lobby, are calling on the U.S. to stop sending offensive weapons to Israel. 

If a candidate like Mamdani — who authored a bill to stop New York nonprofits from sending money to Israeli settlements; warned in 2023 that Israel was on the verge of committing genocide in Gaza; and is considered a generational political communicator able to galvanize scores of new voters — can’t land the message on Israel, can anyone? 

The post Zohran Mamdani Has Pushed the Liberal Consensus on Palestine. The Left Isn’t Satisfied. appeared first on The Intercept.

“They’re arguing that I should be put in prison just for speaking up against the genocide of my people,” Mahdawi told The Intercept. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took Mahdawi away in handcuffs in April after he arrived at what he thought was his naturalization interview to become a U.S. citizen, as The Intercept first reported. Since a federal judge ordered Mahdawi’s release on bail in May, the Trump administration has been working to re-imprison him and remove him from the country. 

Speaking to The Intercept, Mahdawi connected his case to President Donald Trump’s larger project to crush his political opponents. Trump has deployed the National Guard to cities he perceives as strongholds for his rivals, Mahdawi noted, while facilitating Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza and backing plans to take over Gaza and parts of the West Bank.

“There is a very clear connection that I see between what is happening in America and what’s happening in Israel. Both of them don’t want democracy,” Mahdawi said. “They want strength and domination and control.”

On Tuesday, attorneys for the U.S. government will argue in federal appeals court to overturn Mahdawi’s release on the grounds that the federal court that freed him was operating outside of its jurisdiction. All three judges on the panel were appointed by Republican presidents: two Trump appointees, William J. Nardini and Steven J. Menashi, and a George W. Bush appointee, Debra Ann Livingston. Menashi has already argued that it was not within the court’s jurisdiction to question the government’s detention of Mahdawi and Rümeysa Öztürk, another student ICE abducted earlier this year.

The case carries significant weight not only for Mahdawi’s future, but also for broader free speech protections under the Trump administration’s attacks. It will center on whether a district court judge had jurisdiction to hear the case challenging Mahdawi’s detention — a detail that, while technical, could restrict judges’ abilities to review unlawful detention in cases like Mahdawi’s if the panel rules in the government’s favor.

“The government has made the same argument of every one of the cases, this jurisdiction argument,” said Luna Droubi, an attorney on Mahdawi’s team, referring to ongoing cases involving other pro-Palestine students. 

Separately, Mahdawi’s legal team is working on his pending immigration case — contending with another government system Trump has been using to crack down on his critics. No hearing date has been set.

“There Is No Protection Whatsoever”

Mahdawi returned to Columbia University this month, stepping back onto the campus where he first became a target of the Trump administration’s sweeping attacks on pro-Palestine students. 

Now working on his master’s in peacemaking and conflict resolution at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, Mahdawi criticized his school for capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands to overhaul its curriculum and policies related to diversity, speech, and protest activity on campus. 

“Columbia is one of the largest [schools] that have the ability and the power to fight back,” Mahdawi said. “And it has decided willingly, without showing any level of resistance, to capitulate and to give the Trump’s administration what they wanted.”

Related

How Columbia’s Leadership Refashioned the University in Trump’s Image

In July, Trump applauded Columbia for agreeing to pay a $200 million settlement to his administration over allegations that the school failed to protect the civil rights of Jewish students after the October 7 attacks. Trump said Columbia had committed to ending what he called its “ridiculous” diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and “protecting the Civil Liberties of their students on campus.” 

Amid Trump’s attacks across higher education, Columbia has agreed to change its disciplinary process, its diversity and equity policies, and to review all of its programming related to Middle Eastern studies. Still, Acting President Claire Shipman said publicly in late July that the school “retains control” over its academic and institutional decisions. 

Mahdawi said Columbia administrators betrayed him before he was taken by ICE, and he’s worried it will happen again. He said he hasn’t received contact from any officials in the university administration since he was detained, nor since his release — even as he faces ongoing legal battles that could affect his studies and determine whether he is deported to the West Bank, where he grew up in a refugee camp. 

A Columbia spokesperson said they thought senior administrators had been in touch with Mahdawi, but did not provide more information.

Before his ICE interview in April, Mahdawi told The Intercept that he pleaded with Columbia to give him safe harbor on campus as he feared being abducted after watching what happened to his colleague, Mahmoud Khalil.

“They ignored me,” he said in an interview earlier this month. “To this moment, none of the officials have reached out to me.”

Droubi, Mahdawi’s attorney, said that “cowardice” was leading universities to perpetuate the Trump administration’s authoritarianism: “That the government wielded its authority on private institutions is so devastating to us all. We should all be horrified that academia is being stifled in this way.”

Mahdawi said Trump is attacking universities because they’re often the birthplace of critical thinking, mobilization, and mass consciousness. The federal government has tried to paint Mahdawi as antisemitic and violent, but his colleagues have described him as a peacebuilder and someone willing to work across ideological lines.

“I don’t know when the moment might come that Columbia would compromise my safety and what kind of deal that they have made with the Trump administration that would actually hand me over again on a plate of gold,” he said. “There’s no protection whatsoever.” 

Related

The Columbia Network Pushing Behind the Scenes to Deport and Arrest Student Protesters

Mahdawi and another one of his attorneys, Cyrus Mehta, both also pointed out that right-wing Zionist groups like Betar and Canary Mission had worked to bring him into the government’s crosshairs. 

“When Betar put it on Twitter, it seemed to follow, like ICE then picked him up,” Mehta said, referring to one of several posts in the months leading up to Mahdawi’s arrest. “We’ve seen that with others also, when they’ve been targeted by Betar, then ICE has followed up.”

“The whole campaign of my detention did not come out of nowhere,” Mahdawi said. “It came from pro-Israel groups that highlighted my profile and attacked me and encouraged the U.S. government to come and pick me up.”

The post Mohsen Mahdawi Faces Conservative Judges as Trump Administration Tries to Lock Him Back Up appeared first on The Intercept.

So when a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology withdrew from a grant from the Israeli military after hearing feedback from students protesting the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it was especially welcome news.

“This is one of the only cases where we know that student activism and public pressure led directly to an Israeli tie being cut, let alone a collaboration with its genocidal military,” said Mila Halgren, a postdoctoral associate at MIT. (The university did not respond to a request for comment.)

MIT has come under internal and public scrutiny for conducting research on warfare technology sponsored by Israel. In July, the United Nations condemned the school for conducting “weapons and surveillance research funded by the Israeli ministry of defense — the only foreign military financing research at the institute.”

That research included projects on drone swarm control — technology which the Israeli military has used during its siege on Gaza — pursuit algorithms, and underwater surveillance.

Markus Buehler, a professor in the civil engineering department, withdrew the grant earlier this summer shortly after a student pro-Palestine group publicized it on Instagram.

“This concession shows that student campaigns do have an influence,” Halgren said. “It also shows that these ties cannot survive transparency and public awareness. Student action is not meaningless; despite increased repression, it is more important than ever to resist genocide.”

Obscuring the Money Trail

MIT has said its proposals are not confidential and that it does not allow funders to make them secret. As students have drawn public attention to the school’s history of developing war technology for Israel, however, the school has made that information opaque, Halgren said.

Related

MIT Shuts Down Internal Grant Database After It Was Used to Research School’s Israel Ties

Students used the school’s internal grant database to identify new contracts with the Israeli Ministry of Defense earlier this year and published a report on more than $3.7 million the Israeli military spent on warfare and surveillance research. (The U.N. mentioned several of those projects in its report this summer criticizing MIT for conducting Israeli military research during the ongoing genocide.)

After the student report was published, the school added new restrictions on access to the data, The Intercept previously reported.

In July, students found a loophole and identified more contracts sponsored by the Israeli military, including Buehler’s. The school responded by adding further restrictions to the database and a warning that unauthorized access could result in disciplinary action. Last month, school police issued a criminal trespass order to a lecturer and former student, citing unauthorized data access in July and August.

The school also stopped publicizing its research sponsors earlier this year. MIT took down its “Brown Book,” which documented its sponsored research, and said it would not publish them going forward. At the time, an MIT spokesperson said the school removed the reports to bring its financial reporting practices in line with federal requirements and “typical” disclosures, MIT’s student newspaper The Tech reported.

“Due to making these Israeli military ties public, MIT has removed access to both of its grant databases,” Halgren said. “There are now no sources for MIT community members to see who funds our school’s research.”

MIT students protesting genocide in Gaza have been calling on the school to drop research funded by the Israeli military since campus protests last spring.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a July statement that school researchers working on projects funded by the Israeli military had faced “willful mischaracterizations” of their work. In a statement defending a professor named in the report as conducting Israeli-funded defense and surveillance research, Kornbluth wrote that suggestions that their research was designed for conflict were “untrue.”

While MIT has cut ties with other countries where partnerships raised concerns about human rights, the school has said it has “compelling reasons” not to cut ties with the Israeli military.

“One contract is down, but we won’t stop until MIT announces a full research stoppage for the Israeli military,” Halgren said. “As a military science school, MIT students and staff have a unique responsibility to stand up to the U.S.–Israeli war machine and prevent more horrifying violence in Palestine.”

The post MIT Professor Cancels Israeli Military Grant After Student Pressure appeared first on The Intercept.

Omar’s office said Tuesday that the measure was an example of Republican hypocrisy over the concept of free speech.

“Congresswoman Omar was one of the first to condemn Charlie Kirk’s murder. She explicitly expressed her sympathies and prayers to his wife and children. She condemned his assassination and has routinely condemned political violence, no matter the political ideology,” a spokesperson from Omar’s office said in a statement to The Intercept.

In an interview with Zeteo last week, Omar addressed remembrances of Kirk that she viewed as sanitizing his overtly bigoted stances and lending undue credulity to his political intent. She also said the news of his killing was “mortifying” and that her heart broke for his children.

“There are a lot of people who are out there talking about him [Kirk] just wanting to have a civil debate,” Omar told Zeteo’s Medhi Hasan. Missing from those arguments, Omar said, was an acknowledgment of the well-documented views Kirk espoused.

“Charlie was someone who once said guns save lives after a school shooting,” she said. “Charlie was someone who was willing to debate and downplay the death of George Floyd in the hands of Minneapolis police.” 

Related

Nothing Will Stop Trump From Weaponizing Charlie Kirk’s Killing to Attack the Left

Kirk’s legacy has been the subject of enthusiastic debate in the days since he was killed. Kirk founded and led the right-wing organization Turning Point USA, which worked to mobilize support for what the Southern Poverty Law Center described as “a white-dominated, male supremacist, Christian social order.”

Mace’s censure resolution comes as at least dozens of people have been fired or disciplined for comments they made in the wake of Kirk’s killing. That includes Matthew Dowd, an analyst at MSNBC, and Karen Attiah, a Washington Post Opinion writer.

Mace said Omar’s comments mocked Kirk’s killing and merited removal from her committee assignments. Mace’s resolution repeatedly quotes a video that Omar reposted on X, but does not quote the representative herself.

Her office did not immediately respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.

In comments to reporters on Monday, President Donald Trump said he agreed that Omar should be stripped from her committees because of her comments about Kirk.

Omar’s office said that during the Zeteo interview, she grappled with what she described as Kirk’s divisive legacy but never implied that he deserved to be shot or celebrated his death. “It is telling that those claiming they are for free speech are the ones punishing and silencing those who exercise that right,” an Omar spokesperson said in a statement to The Intercept.

Since she was elected in 2018, Omar has herself faced violent threats, which she addressed in the Zeteo interview.

“You have people like Nancy Mace who constantly harass people that she finds inferior and wants them to not exist in this country or ever,” Omar said. “You have people like Trump, who has incited violence against people like me. These people are full of shit, and it’s important for us to call them out while we feel anger and sadness.”

Omar has already faced a handful of censure resolutions and attacks from both Democrats and Republicans in recent years over her comments criticizing the Israel lobby and U.S. imperialism. Omar faced two censure resolutions last year over a claim that she had a “history of antisemitism” and separate comments she made in a speech to Somali Americans.

In 2023, House Republicans removed Omar from her position on the House Foreign Affairs Committee over comments she made criticizing the Israel lobby. And in 2019, the House voted on a resolution claiming to condemn antisemitism in response to other comments from Omar. 

Omar’s office said these punishments from the GOP showed a clear bias. “It is also notable that every single Republican censure resolution against members of Congress targets legislators of color.”

Update: September 16, 2025, 2:47 p.m. ET

This story has been updated to include additional detail about Rep. Nancy Mace’s resolution.

The post Nancy Mace Targets Ilhan Omar in Charlie Kirk Speech Crackdown appeared first on The Intercept.

In an opinion piece for the New York Times, Hochul wrote that she and Mamdani shared priorities like making the city more affordable and ensuring strong leadership of the New York Police Department. She also took an oblique shot at Mamdani’s two main competitors: current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who President Donald Trump’s team has reportedly pushed to drop out of the race, and Andrew Cuomo, who would have a better shot at winning if Adams did so. The former governor lost the Democratic primary by just under 13 percentage points to Mamdani in June. 

“In light of the abhorrent and destructive policies coming out of Washington every day, I needed to know the next mayor will not be someone who would surrender one inch to President Trump,” Hochul wrote. Trump, apparently displeased with the endorsement, called it “a rather shocking development.”

Hochul’s support for Mamdani followed nearly three months of hand-wringing from the de facto leader of New York’s Democratic Party, who has expressed skepticism of Mamdani’s policy proposals that would require tax hikes on the wealthy and more public spending. Now, Hochul’s endorsement sets her apart from the top two Democrats in Congress — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — who have both declined to weigh in on the most heated race in New York City.

As a result, New York’s Democratic establishment remains split over whether they should rally behind Mamdani, Cuomo, or — seemingly – no one. 

Nearly three months after the primary, only four members of the Democratic congressional delegation representing New York City districts have endorsed Mamdani: Reps. Nydia Velázquez, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Jerry Nadler, and Adriano Espaillat. Only Velázquez and Ocasio-Cortez backed Mamdani before his primary win.

“We have a Democratic nominee,” Ocasio-Cortez told reporters earlier this month. “Are we a party that rallies behind their nominee, or not?” 

Related

How Andrew Cuomo Could Become NYC Mayor — Even if Zohran Mamdani Wins

Many members of New York City’s financial elite, set on edge by Mamdani’s promises of a freeze on stabilized rents and other measures to lower the city’s cost of living, have been plotting to keep him from securing the mayor’s seat in November.

Democratic Reps. George Latimer, Ritchie Torres, Gregory Meeks, and Tom Suozzi have endorsed Cuomo. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Reps. Dan Goldman, Grace Meng, and Yvette Clarke have not made endorsements in the race.

Urging her fellow New York Democrats to back Mamdani, Ocasio-Cortez has pointed to her support of President Joe Biden during the 2024 presidential election even though he was not her preferred candidate. 

“We use our primaries to settle our differences and once we have a nominee, we rally behind that nominee. I am very concerned by the example that is being set by anybody in our party,” Ocasio-Cortez said earlier this month. “If an individual doesn’t want to support the party’s nominee now, it complicates their ability to ask voters to support any nominee later.”

Outside the city, Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat who represents a swing district in the Hudson Valley, endorsed Mamdani last week. Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen, a moderate from Long Island, was the first Democrat to publicly denounce Mamdani’s campaign after his win but has not endorsed a candidate in the race. 

Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Jeffries pointed to a statement he made to reporters last week: “I certainly will have more to say about the New York City mayor’s race in short order.”

Offices for Schumer, Gillibrand, Goldman, Meng, and Clarke did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

Nadler, who announced this month he will retire at the end of the current congressional session, addressed his change of heart toward Mamdani during an interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer on September 5. During the primary, Nadler said he would not back Mamdani because of his criticism of Israel’s genocide in Gaza and what Nadler called Mamdani’s lack of experience. Nadler told Lehrer his decision to endorse Mamdani after he won the primary was a no-brainer. 

“First, he was the Democratic nominee,” Nadler said. “Second, what are the alternatives? You have the mayor, who’s a crook, and you had Andrew Cuomo, whom I had said should resign from the governorship because he was a repeat sexual predator.”

Goldman, whose Manhattan district Mamdani won in June, endorsed state Sen. Zellnor Myrie before the primary and has said he has spoken with Mamdani but won’t endorse him without “concrete steps” to assuage fears from Jewish New Yorkers about hate crimes in the city. It’s not clear what further steps Goldman wants to see — Mamdani has repeatedly said he takes concerns about antisemitism seriously and that he would take steps to protect all of his constituents — Jewish and otherwise.  

Clarke endorsed New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams before the primary. Meng, who did not make an endorsement prior to the primary, congratulated Mamdani on his win in June and a campaign that she said “built coalitions & mobilized underrepresented New Yorkers!” But she stopped short of endorsing Mamdani.

Gustavo Gordillo, co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America, which supports Mamdani’s campaign, condemned the party establishment for neglecting to rally behind Mamdani.

“Establishment Democrats have no plan to support the workers targeted by Trump’s agenda,” Gordillo said. “If establishment Democrats refuse to get behind Zohran, they’re not just rejecting the vision of an affordable NYC — they’re rejecting the 500,000 voters and counting who are behind Zohran.”

The post Kathy Hochul Endorsed Zohran Mamdani. Will Top Democrats Join Her? appeared first on The Intercept.

“There was no legal justification for the Trump Administration’s military escalation in the Caribbean,” Omar said in a statement to The Intercept. “It was not self-defense or authorized by Congress. That is why I am introducing a resolution to terminate hostilities against Venezuela, and against the transnational criminal organizations that the Administration has designated as terrorists this year. All of us should agree that the separation of powers is crucial to our democracy, and that only Congress has the power to declare war.”

Congress has the “sole power to declare war” as outlined in the Constitution, though U.S. presidents often bypass this authority when carrying out international attacks. Omar, deputy chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, unveiled the resolution with the backing of CPC leaders, including caucus Chair Greg Casar, D-Texas, and caucus whip Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, D-Ill.

Casar said Trump’s strike was illegal.

“Donald Trump cannot be allowed to drag the United States into another endless war with his reckless actions,” Casar said. “It is illegal for the president to take the country to war without consulting the people’s representatives, and Congress must vote now to stop Trump from putting us at further risk.”

Related

Rand Paul Reveals Venezuela Boat Attack Was a Drone Strike

The Intercept first reported on Wednesday that U.S. forces struck the boat multiple times in order to kill survivors, according to two U.S. officials granted anonymity to discuss the attacks.

News of the strike on the boat, which President Donald Trump claimed was carrying drugs from Venezuela, has divided some Republicans. Sen. Rand Paul revealed to The Intercept on Wednesday that the attack was a drone strike. A current Pentagon official denounced the strike as an attack on civilians that violated international law.

While the president is commander in chief of the U.S. military, the Constitution gives Congress the authority to declare war and authorize funding. The first war powers resolution of 1973 required the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying U.S. forces abroad. Although Congress has not officially declared war since World War II, U.S. presidents have long found ways to authorize military action around the globe without Congress’s explicit permission.

The new resolution states that Congress has not declared war or enacted an authorization for use of military force against Venezuela or any transnational criminal organizations designated as terrorists since February. The measure also directs Trump to end the use of U.S. armed forces against Venezuela or any transnational criminal groups designated as terrorists without authorization by Congress.

Members of Congress in both parties have expressed concerns about Trump’s overreach in the use of military force. House Republicans are planning to advance a measure to repeal the president’s power to authorize military operations in the Middle East, as Politico and other outlets reported Tuesday. In June, after Trump ordered bombings in Iran, Democrats tried to advance a new war powers resolution which did not succeed in blocking the president’s actions. Trump has also proposed to “take over” Gaza, which the United Nations has said would violate international law.

García, the CPC whip, said the strike further exacerbated problems in a part of the world deeply damaged by U.S. interventions throughout history.

“The extrajudicial strike against a vessel in the Caribbean Sea is only the most recent of Trump’s reckless, deadly, and illegal military actions. Now, he’s lawlessly threatening a region already profoundly impacted by the destabilization of U.S. actions,” said García. “With this War Powers Resolution, we emphasize the total illegality of his action, and — consistent with overwhelming public opposition to forever war — reclaim Congress’ sole power to authorize military action.”

The post Ilhan Omar Brings War Powers to Block Trump Attacks After Venezuela Boat Strike appeared first on The Intercept.

U.S. and Israeli officials told CNN and other outlets on Tuesday that Israel — which the U.S. arms to the tune of billions of dollars each year — gave President Donald Trump’s administration advance warning before carrying out the strike. The attack drew ire from progressive members of Congress, who told The Intercept that the U.S. must stop arming Israel as it accelerates attacks around the globe.

“In the past two years, Israel has bombed nation after nation with no repercussions — all while conducting a genocide and manufacturing a famine in Gaza using U.S. taxpayer dollars,” said Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa. “There must be accountability for Israel’s unchecked power and destabilization of the region. The United States must implement an arms embargo immediately.”

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., said the strikes were “a mistake” that will only intensify the conflict. “I think it’s a mistake to have those strikes. And the president is saying we need to end the war. This is escalating the conflict,” said Khanna.

Related

Israel’s Peace Plan: Assassinate the Ceasefire Negotiators

Members of Congress also expressed concerns that Israel was intent on expanding its “never-ending war” at the expense of both the Palestinian people and the remaining Israeli hostages in Hamas custody. 

“My concern is that this is a never-ending war, where Israel is targeting more and more countries around the world with impunity,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., “instead of negotiating a ceasefire and getting the hostages home and getting aid to the Palestinians.”

Israel has carried out tens of thousands of attacks in Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, Yemen, and now Qatar since the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, according to data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project. In the last three days, Israel bombed three residential buildings in Gaza City and dropped leaflets ordering residents to evacuate.

Israel said the attacks in Doha on Tuesday targeted leaders of Hamas. U.S. military funding and arms make Israel’s offensive attacks possible; Without it, the country would not be able to continue its siege on Gaza.

Qatar has been mediating the negotiations between Israel and Hamas, alongside Egypt. Hamas officials claimed that their negotiation team was targeted in the strike. On Tuesday, experts told The Intercept the attack was “a mockery of international law.”

Qatari officials have called the strike a “blatant violation” of international law. 

“The State of Qatar strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack that targeted residential buildings housing several members of the Political Bureau of Hamas in the Qatari capital, Doha,” wrote Majed Al Ansari, a spokesperson for the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in a statement on X. “This criminal assault constitutes a blatant violation of all international laws and norms, and poses a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents in Qatar.” 

While the White House distanced itself from the attack — with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Trump “feels very badly” — some conservatives celebrated it. In a post on X, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., implied that the strikes should extend into Lebanon and Syria, which were both attacked by Israel earlier this year.

“To those who want this war to end: Insist that Hamas surrender now. To my Israeli friends: I understand your determination to ensure there are no more ‘October 7’ attacks and that those who want to destroy the Jewish state are denied that capability. I will always be your partner in this endeavor,” Graham wrote. “To Lebanon: Hezbollah is on my mind. To Syria: Choose wisely.”

The post Progressives Urge U.S. Arms Embargo After Israel Bombs Qatar appeared first on The Intercept.

Today, in the 2026 race, another challenger is trying their hand against Gomez — and they have the backing of progressive outfit Justice Democrats. 

Supporters of Angela Gonzales-Torres think she’ll be able to fight off spending from the pro-Israel and cryptocurrency lobby groups that dominated Gomez’s last primary. Justice Democrats said it will help Gonzales-Torres raise money through its grassroots, digital funding network.

Gonzales-Torres, a former Highland Park neighborhood council president, launched her campaign against Gomez in April, saying the incumbent had sold out the congressional district thanks to the influx of special interest money.

“I didn’t move to this district to become a politician funded by corporate super PACs,” said Gonzales-Torres, who was born and raised in North East LA. “We need to recognize that being deemed progressive isn’t the same as delivering real change.”

Gonzales-Torres criticized Gomez for not signing onto progressive bills that would have conditioned arms sales to Israel, stanched the flow of corporate cash in politics, and tackled price gouging.

“It isn’t just about calling for someone’s resignation,” she told The Intercept. “It’s about answering for our calls as Angelenos.”

Justice Democrats said Gomez’s leadership isn’t meeting the moment in a city that President Donald Trump has flooded with ICE agents and National Guard troops. 

“Jimmy Gomez got to Washington and closed the door on his community behind him to embrace the same corporate PACs and right-wing lobbies that are raising costs for Angelenos and demanding their tax dollars fund genocide,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. “In a city that has become ground zero for Donald Trump’s war on immigrant families, Angelenos deserve a leader whose donors will never dictate how hard they fight back.”

Defended by AIPAC

Gonzales-Torres is the second challenger Gomez has faced in recent years from his left. In office since 2017, Gomez easily beat a challenge during his first term from Kenneth Mejia, now the Los Angeles city controller. In each of the last three elections, Gomez fended off more credible challenges from Democrat David Kim.

Kim came within 6 percent points of beating Gomez during the general election in 2020 — where they faced off thanks to California’s “jungle primary” system — and 3 points in the 2022 general election. 

In the 2024 race, Kim called for cutting off U.S. military funding to Israel and drew fire from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and its super PAC, United Democracy Project. Kim also supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and called for an international court to prosecute illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

Kim endorsed Gonzales-Torres, who previously volunteered for his campaign.

After AIPAC, the nation’s flagship Israel lobby, spent more than half a million dollars against Kim last year, Gomez won by 11 points.

Related

Facing Voter Pressure, Swing-State Democrat Swears Off AIPAC Cash

AIPAC has been among Gomez’s top campaign contributors over the last decade. AIPAC’s candidate page for Gomez praises him for supporting pro-Israel legislation, including co-sponsoring a resolution affirming U.S. support for Israel after the October 7 attacks.

The group also touted his support for legislation for supplemental security assistance to Israel, condemning BDS and traveling twice to Israel on trips paid for by AIPAC’s educational arm. The lobby group congratulated Gomez in November for beating Kim, who they described as running on an “overtly anti-Israel platform.” (AIPAC and its super PAC did not respond to a request for comment.)

Still, Gomez’s record on Israel has not agreed with AIPAC’s every position.

In the wake of the October 7 attack, he signed on quickly to measures affirming unconditional U.S. support for Israel and a harshly worded resolution on escalating campus protest movements against the war.

In November 2023, though, Gomez called for a “cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, even as AIAPC raged against any call for an end to the violence.

When progressives, responding to spiking Palestinian deaths in the early days of the war, pushed a ceasefire resolution, Gomez did not sign on. (Gomez’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

He has voted both for and against U.S. funding for Israel and called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. Unlike many other pro-Israel Democrats, Gomez did not vote for a measure to condemn the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic; instead, he abstained. He was also absent for a vote to adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes any criticism of Israel. And he voted present on a resolution to condemn antisemitism on college campuses.

Crypto Cash

Gomez also received support in his last race from the cryptocurrency industry. Putting in more than half a million dollars to back Gomez, crypto was the second-largest outside spender in the race after AIPAC. The political action committee Fairshake, whose subsidiary PACs back candidates in both parties, spent $511,000 to support Gomez.

Gomez has an A rating from a leading pro-cryptocurrency group and has voted for at least four bills in the last two years that were supported by the industry, including Trump’s bill to accelerate deregulation. (FairShake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)

More recently, however, Gomez criticized Trump for profiting from crypto. Replying to a story earlier this week about the Trump family making billions of dollars from its crypto venture, Gomez tweeted that Trump and the billionaire establishment are profiting as “everyone else gets screwed.”

Related

DNC Votes Down “Overwhelming Popular Position” Calling for Arms Ban to Israel

Gomez has enjoyed steady support from constituents since he was first elected in 2016. Gomez has been a vocal critic of Trump. He made national headlines in June for being denied entry to a federal immigration detention facility and, in July, sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for blocking him and three other Democrats from visiting detention facilities.

The money Gomez gets from corporate PACs is what Gonzales-Torres is focusing on. After pro-Israel groups, Gomez’s top donors throughout his career include real estate and insurance groups, law firms, and securities and investment outfits. He has also received support from labor unions and progressives including another Justice Democrats candidate, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. 

Gonzales-Torres, for her part, is rejecting corporate PAC money. Instead, she is running on affordable housing, access to mental health support, and ending mass incarceration. And she supports protecting immigrants’ rights, Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal — all things Gomez supports too. 

Gonzales-Torres said she’s not focused on whether AIPAC will spend against her campaign. She’s betting small-dollar donors and a student-led campaign can overcome the big money. She said her campaign is focusing on mobilizing students in the district.

She said, “That means that we are not selling out our communities to corporate PACs.”

The post She’s Challenging an AIPAC Democrat. A National Progressive Group Wants In. appeared first on The Intercept.

Oliver Mata Velasquez’s arrest outside a Buffalo, New York, court hearing on his asylum process was unlawful, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo wrote. 

“Mata Velasquez followed all the rules,” Vilardo wrote, “On the other hand, the government changed the rules by fiat, applied them retroactively, and pulled the rug out from under Mata Velasquez and many like him who tried to do things the right way.” 

In the weeks since, lawyers for Mata Velasquez said Vilardo’s order could influence similar cases and, they hope, lead to ICE releasing others arrested in immigration court. 

Now, the New York Civil Liberties Union and other organizations have sued the Trump administration, seeking to end the practice of courthouse arrests nationwide.

Mata Velasquez was one of hundreds of people taken by ICE during its new practice of stationing agents outside of immigration courts around the country to make arrests when people show up for routine hearings. While judges have released several people arrested in the stakeouts on bond, few have ordered their outright release.

That’s what makes Mata Velasquez’s case so unique, said attorney Amy Belsher, who worked on the case and is the director of Immigrants’ Rights Litigation at the New York Civil Liberties Union.

“Outright release is really rare in an immigration case,” she said. “The court was rightfully outraged at the detention to begin with.” 

The order could open the door for other defendants to find similar relief, said Sarah Gillman, director of strategic U.S. litigation with Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights and one of Mata Velasquez’s attorneys.

“We hope the decision sends a strong message about the actions of the government here,” she said. “I think that this ruling could definitely have an impact on these cases.”

“What’s going on with this administration is that they are testing the limits of everything,” Gillman added. “I think in Oliver’s case, the court sent a resounding message back, saying, ‘No.’ ”

The NYCLU, representing New York City-based immigrant advocacy organizations African Communities Together and The Door, is now asking a federal judge to overturn the Trump administration policies allowing for arrests in immigration court. They cite the cases of 10 people they allege were detained after showing up for otherwise routine immigration hearings.

“These policies are unlawful,” the lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York, argues. “Such arrests chill access to the courts and impede the fair administration of justice.”

The parties are due for an initial hearing on October 10. (The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.) 

New ICE Tactics

In the lawsuit, the NYCLU attorneys argue the Trump administration changed two key policies that have laid the groundwork for the arrests in immigration court. 

First, they say, ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rescinded a Biden-era policy that formalized a long-standing practice, banning so-called courthouse arrests. 

Second, the attorneys argue, the Executive Office for Immigration Review issued a new policy that empowered immigration judges to dismiss a broader category of cases than before.

Those two changes, the lawsuit alleges, have put in place a new practice where the government’s immigration lawyers move to dismiss cases verbally, a judge grants the dismissal, and then a migrant is detained shortly thereafter while still in the court building.

“ICE officers — in coordination with DHS attorneys — station themselves in immigration court, including in the hallways or even in courtrooms, so that they can immediately arrest and detain individuals upon conclusion of their court hearings,” the lawsuit says.

That’s exactly what happened to Mata Velasquez.

On the morning of May 21, Mata Velasquez showed up for a routine immigration hearing in downtown Buffalo. The courthouse, located at 130 Delaware Avenue, is in a nondescript office building located near Niagara Square and Buffalo City Hall. 

Born in Venezuela, Mata Velasquez arrived in the U.S. in September 2024 after waiting for an appointment via the CBPOne application, a process put in place by the Biden administration. Once in Buffalo, he lived with an uncle and, like other migrants in the city, found work in a local hotel as a housekeeper.

Following his court hearing, his lawyers later said, he took the elevator down from the third floor. Waiting for him in the small lobby were four ICE agents.

Related

ICE Lawyers Are Hiding Their Names in Immigration Court

Mata Velasquez speaks only Spanish, but the agents had paperwork in English and demanded that he sign it, according to both Mata Velasquez’s lawyers and his uncle. His uncle described them as wearing civilian clothes, not ICE uniforms. 

Mata Velasquez was then detained and sent to the ICE detention center located in Batavia, about 40 miles east of the courthouse.

“He was really scared when they pressured him to sign this form,” his uncle, who requested anonymity for fear of being targeted by ICE, said in an interview. “My nephew is a good person. He doesn’t have a criminal record or any tattoos. He’s a good person, he’s a kid.”

Mata Velasquez’s lawyers, in their successful petition to have him released, said he was afraid while in the Batavia facility and routinely harassed by others.

“Oliver is terrified and experiencing the harms of being in a carceral setting for the first time,” that petition said. “He has experienced harassment from at least 10 other detainees, many of whom are much older than him. Officers threatened to place him in solitary confinement and Oliver is very scared of being put in such isolating conditions.”

Related

Chinese ICE Detainee Dies by Suicide at Pennsylvania Detention Center

Solitary confinement is a standard practice at the Batavia facility, which uses the isolated cells more than all but four other ICE facilities in the country. Prior reporting by The Intercept and its partners found that solitary confinement is a frequent tool used by ICE, and occasionally results in detainees taking their own lives.

Mata Velasquez ultimately spent 26 days in the Batavia facility before Vilardo, the federal judge in Buffalo, ordered him released.

“Rarely do we ever get somebody’s outright relief granted,” said Jillian Nowak, managing attorney at Prisoners’ Legal Services of New York. “And I’m hoping we can use this as a foundational decision to pump the brakes on some of these detentions.”

Bid to End Court Arrests

Facing an uphill battle in getting all courthouse arrestees released, the legal advocacy organizations are shifting their strategy to challenge as a system what they argue are unlawful policies. Belsher, of the NYCLU, said doing so is necessary to combat the Trump administration’s crackdown on migrants.

“This is a broader strategy of the government’s, right? Just flood the system,” Belsher said. “They are causing enormous harm by just doing unlawful things at scale.” 

Every individual case requires intensive resources.

“They are doing this to hundreds of people,” she said, “and thousands of people are terrified to go to their hearings because of it.” 

The lawsuit argues that allowing the courthouse arrests to continue will only enable ICE to detain more people, putting more strain on detention centers that are already at or over capacity. Through June, data shows that ICE has doubled arrests compared to 2024. The majority of those arrested have no criminal record, despite the rhetoric published by ICE and the White House.

“Due to the increase in arrests and related overcrowding at many of its detention facilities, ICE has been detaining noncitizens swept up in immigration courthouse arrests in transitional holding facilities for prolonged periods — in some cases over a week — where they lack access to counsel and are in conditions wholly inadequate to safely and humanely detain people,” the suit alleges.

In Western New York, CBP offices at the Peace and Rainbow bridges as well as other CBP stations have been used to detain migrant families including toddlers and those with life-threatening diseases. 

Statewide, four county sheriffs have newly agreed to allow ICE to detain migrants in their jails. In New York City, arrests and detentions in the federal building at 26 Federal Plaza have raised alarm among immigration advocates.

Gillman, one of Mata Velasquez’s lawyers, said she hopes the Vilardo ruling and subsequent NYCLU lawsuit shifts the tide.

“As the judge wrote in his decision, the government … can’t just kind of change the goalpost and say, ‘Now we’re just going to go out and arrest people without any type of process, without any type of due process,’” she said. “As a lawyer, the legal decision that the judge made is very, in my mind, impactful.”

The post Teen Immigrant’s Release Propels Lawsuit to End ICE’s Courthouse Arrests appeared first on The Intercept.