CIA analyst, who leaked Israeli plans to strike Iran, gets 37 months in prison
(JNS) — The former CIA analyst Asif Rahman, who admitted in January that he leaked classified information about Israel’s military response to Iran’s missile attacks on Oct. 1, 2024, was sentenced on Wednesday to 37 months in prison, the U.S. Justice Department said.
The 34-year-old had faced up to 10 years in jail for the two counts — illegally retaining and transmitting classified national security information.
“For months, this defendant betrayed the American people and the oaths he took upon entering his office by leaking some of our nation’s most closely held secrets,” stated John Eisenberg, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security.
Federal judge orders Mahmoud Khalil to be released by Friday on
$1 bond
(JTA) — A federal judge has decreed that Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian Columbia University protest leader, cannot be detained or deported and set the stage for him to go free as early as Friday.
Khalil was the first leader of last year’s pro-Palestinian student protests to be arrested under the Trump administration’s push to deport non-citizens who they said fueled antisemitism on campuses.
Others have already been released on court orders after multiple federal judges ruled that the administration had violated the students’ rights by detaining them despite not accusing them of crimes.
Last month, Judge Michael Farbiarz of the Federal District Court in New Jersey ruled that the law that the State Department cited in justifying Khalil’s deportation — a little-used provision that says the United States can seek to eject non-citizens whose actions undermine U.S. policy — was likely unconstitutional.
Arizona governor vetoes bill that would let parents sue teachers over antisemitism
(JTA) — Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill Tuesday that would have enabled students and parents in Arizona to sue teachers for teaching or promoting antisemitism.
“Unfortunately, this bill is not about antisemitism; it’s about attacking our teachers,” wrote Hobbs in a letter announcing the veto on Tuesday.
“It puts an unacceptable level of personal liability in place for our public school, community college, and university educators and staff, opening them up to threats of personally costly lawsuits,” Hobbs continued.
The “Antisemitism in Education Act” outlined a laundry list of provisions that would be labeled as antisemitic and therefore warrant litigation by students and parents in K-12 schools and universities. The bill adhered to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which has been criticized for labeling some anti-Israel sentiments as antisemitic.
The head of a new RFK Jr. support group believes the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are real
(JTA) — The director of a new organization founded to advance the priorities of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has extensively promoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a famous antisemitic forgery.
Leland Lehrman, who last month was named executive director of the MAHA Institute, also believes Israel may have been behind the 9/11 terror attacks, and has inveighed against “high-level Jewish Illuminists, or Lucifer worshipers.”
That’s according to a new report from the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, a social justice watchdog group founded by an acclaimed Jewish researcher on white nationalism, detailing Lehrman’s views and writing.
Lehrman’s beliefs about Jews — despite having a Jewish father himself, the conservative politician and investment banker Lewis E. Lehrman, the grandson of the founder of Rite Aid — reflect classical antisemitic tropes and conspiratorial thinking.
