Five Questions for America’s Secret Police
Plus: DOGE tries to kill America’s most important seed bank.
Bill Kristol sat in for Sarah on the Secret pod today and it’s a pretty wide-ranging (but depressing) show. I would say that both of us are around DEFCON 3 for democracy right now.
The show is here.
Also: Hannah Yoest is here today with an item about DOGE’s attempt to kill the National Plant Germplasm System, which is America’s most important seed bank.
Because what could possibly go wrong?
1. Just Asking Questions
Yesterday Marco Rubio was asked why he revoked the visa of Tufts grad student Rümeysa Öztürk. Here’s his response:
“If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student, and you tell us that the reason why you’re coming to the United States is not just ’cause you want to write op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus, we’re not going to give you a visa,” Rubio said.
“If you come into the U.S. as a visitor and create a ruckus for us, we don’t want it. We don’t want it in our country. Go back and do it in your country,” . . .
Rubio noted during the press conference that he has personally revoked dozens of visas, possibly “more than 300 at this point.”
“We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas,” Rubio said.
Meanwhile, a DHS spokesman explained that “DHS and ICE investigations found Öztürk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.”
These statements raise more questions than they answer.
(1) What is the evidence that Öztürk supported Hamas?
We have one op-ed in a student paper coauthored by Öztürk and it does not mention Hamas. If the government has proof that Öztürk “engaged in activities in support of Hamas,” it has not publicly produced it.
(2) Who is funneling the list of people to Rubio for revocation of their visas?
I assume that the secretary of state is not sitting around googling campus activists and trying to find evidence of actionable thought crimes. Someone else must be compiling this list of “lunatics” creating a “ruckus.”
What individual or organization is doing this research and list-making? Are they inside, or outside, the government?
(3) How is this list of targets having the evidence against them verified?
