{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-urges-doj-investigate-outside-funding-far-left-anti-israel-student-groups/", "Hawley Urges DOJ Investigate Outside Funding of Far-Left, Anti-Israel Student Groups", "2023-10-16", "2023", "2023-10", "Republican", "Senate", "MO", "Josh Hawley", "H001089", "www.hawley.senate.gov", "hawley", "https://www.hawley.senate.gov/press-releases/page/", "scraper", "Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, urging the Department of Justice (DOJ) immediately deploy resources to investigate the third-party funding of far-left student organizations that have called for the effective destruction of Israel.\n\n\u201cIn the wake of the brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, we have witnessed an alarming rise in support for violence against the Jewish people,\u201d wrote Senator Hawley. \u201cPublic reports indicate that several far-left student groups have lined up to effectively cheerlead Hamas\u2019s genocidal war against the people of Israel.\u201d\n\nHe continued, \u201cGiven the potential scale of this threat, I urge you to immediately deploy DOJ resources to investigate these organizations\u2019 funding sources. The First Amendment protects the right to protest. But it does not protect the provision of material support to terrorist organizations. Nor does it insulate financial transactions that threaten our national security. Hamas, as you are well aware, is designated a terrorist organization pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. DOJ should deploy all appropriate authorities to investigate any potential links to organizations that operate within the United States.\u201d\n\nRead the full letter here or below.\n\nOctober 16, 2023\n\nThe Honorable Merrick Garland\n\nAttorney General\n\nUnited States Department of Justice\n\n950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.\n\nWashington, D.C. 20530\n\nDear Attorney General Garland:\n\nIn the wake of the brutal terrorist attacks by Hamas against Israel, we have witnessed an alarming rise in support for violence against the Jewish people. Public reports indicate that several far-left student groups have lined up to effectively cheerlead Hamas\u2019s genocidal war against the people of Israel:\n\nAt Harvard University alone, 34 student organizations signed a letter declaring that they \u201chold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,\u201d and that Israel is \u201cthe only one to blame\u201d for the unfolding carnage.\n\nThe University of California, Los Angeles witnessed a massive protest by students screaming \u201cintifada, intifada\u201d\u2014a call for a violent uprising and the murder of Jewish people.\n\nIn New York, Columbia University was forced to close its campus to the public after an Israeli student was violently assaulted by an allegedly pro-Palestine student.\n\nThe University of Virginia chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine announced that the mass murder of civilians was \u201ca step towards a free Palestine . . . reflect[ing] the power and resilience of the Palestinian people.\u201d\n\nOther examples are legion. These student organizations are seemingly lobbying in support of the murder of innocent people, including children and babies. They are menacing Jewish Americans within our cities. And they are doing so in what appears to be a coordinated fashion.\n\nThere is a long and sordid history of supposedly independent \u201chuman rights\u201d groups operating within American borders, that possess longstanding ties to foreign terrorist organizations. To name just one high-profile example, in the early 2000s, the Department of Justice shuttered the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and jailed its founders, after finding that this supposed charitable organization was funneling money into the pockets of Hamas. It is entirely possible that many of these student organizations, at some level or another, are enmeshed in similar networks\u2014whether as recipients of funding from these malicious actors or as conduits for it.\n\nGiven the potential scale of this threat, I urge you to immediately deploy DOJ resources to investigate these organizations\u2019 funding sources. The First Amendment protects the right to protest. But it does not protect the provision of material support to terrorist organizations. Nor does it insulate financial transactions that threaten our national security. Hamas, as you are well aware, is designated a terrorist organization pursuant to section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act. DOJ should deploy all appropriate authorities to investigate any potential links to organizations that operate within the United States.\n\nIn particular, the Department should prioritize investigating the following questions:\n\nOf those student organizations presently calling for the effective destruction of Israel and justifying the recent massacre of Jewish people, how many receive significant funding from third-party groups?\n\nOf those third-party groups that offer financial support to pro-Hamas student organizations, or for which pro-Hamas student organizations conduct fundraising, how many have financial or ideological ties to Hamas?\n\nThank you for your attention to this matter.\n\nSincerely,", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T18:43:12Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.hawley.senate.gov/hawley-urges-doj-investigate-outside-funding-far-left-anti-israel-student-groups/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.1201570741832256, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}