“Treason.” “Sedition.” “Coup.”
These were the words used immediately to describe the protesters—or “insurrectionists” who participated in the January 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill.
As ugly as that day was without having to embellish, Democrats and Never Trump Republicans were still insistent that this event was not merely a political protest turned violent, but a legitimate attempt to overthrow the United States federal government.
Never mind that there was zero chance that was actually going to happen. Never mind that there was no organized effort to do so, or a particular foreign state or domestic faction with the power to take over the strongest nation on earth.
It was just Trump supporters wilding out over politics, something Tesla stockholders might be able to recognize in the current moment.
Still, we were expected to believe that these were “domestic terrorists” who deserved harsher than usual sentences, despite most of the actual crimes committed being closer to trespassing or vandalism than political revolution. Harsher than usual sentences is exactly what many received.
Recognizing this injustice, President Donald Trump pardoned them all after being sworn in to his second term.
This month, pro-Palestinian activist Khalil Mahmoud was arrested and might be deported. He has not been charged with a crime.
He has been called a “terrorist,” “anti-Semitic,” and “pro-Hamas.”
Whether he is any of these things is up for debate. That each is protected under the First Amendment, even for a green card holder and a husband of an American citizen like Mahmoud, is not.
Conservative pundit Ann Coulter asked, rightly, “There’s almost no one I don’t want to deport, but, unless they’ve committed a crime, isn’t this a violation of the first amendment?”
Yes, it is.
In the minds of congressional January 6 interrogators like Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, those protesters were “insurrectionists” and “terrorists” precisely because they were avid Trump supporters and Cheney and Kinzinger absolutely hate those people.
It’s politics first. Principle or law, second.
In the minds of Trump administration officials and others eager to label Mahmoud a terrorist, they simply don’t like that he’s a critic of Israel’s government. If he committed a crime, charge him, and if found guilty, dispense the appropriate level of justice.
But speech isn’t a crime in the United States. It’s protected. Even for non-citizens.
Mahmoud was arrested for wrongthink. As The American Conservative’s Andrew Day bluntly put it, “Here’s the plain truth: Khalil was arrested not because he posed a threat to the United States, but because he protested against Israel.”
Is this administration America First? Or Israel first?
How about even just the Constitution first?
As Day observed:
“The Trump administration simply cannot pursue an America-First policy agenda if its military and staffing decisions and the nation’s foundational rights are subject to Israeli veto. Whatever MAGA conservatives think of Khalil or the views he espoused, they should oppose his deportation—for freedom, for sovereignty, and for America.”
Whether it’s J6 protesters or pro-Palestinian activists, their prosecutors’ eagerness to put them in some “other” category that goes well beyond their alleged crimes is an effort to diminish due process laws and undermine their basic constitutional rights.
Even before the J6 controversy, it wasn’t long ago that the Department of Homeland Security, Vice President Joe Biden, and Democrats in general were labeling Tea Party leaders and activists as “terrorists.”
The impulse to do this is bipartisan. In 2023, the FBI under Biden reportedly released a memo from its Richmond office targeting Catholics as “terrorists.” The Catholic News Agency reported:
“[The memo] asserted that ‘radical-traditionalist’ Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as ‘threat mitigation,’ the executive order states. ‘This later-retracted FBI memorandum cited as support evidence propaganda from highly partisan sources.”
Partisan is right. That’s exactly what all of these examples are: Weaponizing the government against one’s political opponents in defiance of the Constitution.
If you’re an American who strongly agrees with Israel, its government, and what’s happening in Gaza, you are free to believe that.
If anyone in the United States takes the opposite view, they are free to believe the same according to the First Amendment. They are also free to believe an election was stolen. Or be able to organize a protest against government spending. Or attend Mass.
Any form of expression that does not include criminality, it’s all protected.
Don’t carve out exceptions to our most basic rights because of how you feel about a particular side in a war an ocean away. The First Amendment exists precisely to protect the speech you hate most.
Khalil Mahmoud should be charged with a crime or released. As the American system demands.
