"Fighting Back": Mahmoud Khalil Sues Trump Admin, Pro-Israel Groups for Conspiracy to Suppress Speech

We speak with Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil about his lawsuit against top Trump administration officials, two pro-Israel groups and a conservative think tank for conspiring to suppress his constitutional right to free speech.

Khalil, who helped lead protests at Columbia University against the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, was one of several international students targeted for deportation by the Trump administration last year over pro-Palestine advocacy.

“I don’t want everything that happened to me to go in vain,” says Khalil.

The lawsuit names Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several other top administration figures; the Heritage Foundation, which launched Project Esther, a campaign to suppress pro-Palestine protests; the far-right pro-Israel group Betar; and Canary Mission, a long-running operation to identify and harass pro-Palestine activists. The lawsuit was brought under the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, a Reconstruction-era law to restrict government coordination with vigilante groups like the Klan. ...