The Media Research Center dishonestly smeared detained student protester Mahmoud Khalil as “terror-adjacent” though even the Trump administration admitted he has committed no crime. When Khalil was finally released from detention, the smears resumed. Jorge Bonilla whined in a June 22 post that Khalil “spent the past several months in ICE custody and was turned into a cause celébre. Now that he’s out and back protesting? Not even a peep.” He added:
There is an interesting dovetail with current events given that Khalil’s activities were found to be “aligned with Hamas”, terror proxy of Iran, whose critical nuclear sites were at least partially destroyed in the successful Operation Midnight Hammer. And yet, none of the legacy newscasts saw fit to cover Khalil’s reemergence.
There were zero mentions of Khalil on the ABC, NBC, or CBS Sunday newscasts. Having proven himself to be who we always thought he was, there isn’t much further media use for Khalil until he is either deported or allowed via judicial fiat to finalize his citizenship process.
Bonilla did not reveal who, exactly, deemed Khalil’s activities “aligned with Hamas” or why anyone should take that ruling seriously, or why he should have his right to protest stripped from him.
Intern Matthew Seck groused that Khalil got interviewed in a June 23 post:
Monday’s Good Morning America showed snippets of ABC News Live Prime anchor Linsey Davis’s interview with former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil, who was recently released on bail from ICE detention. Despite Khalil’s ties to pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas protests, (and laws that contradict ABC’s statements) they still painted him as a father who was wrongfully arrested for peacefully protesting.
Seck offered no evidence that Khalil’s protests weren’t peaceful. Instead, he resumed his employer’s guilt-by-association efforts by personally blaming Khalil for social media posts by a group he represented:
Khalil said that the Trump administration arrested him because he “represents a movement that goes against what this administration is trying to do.” He’s right! The Trump administration believes there’s no place for Hamas sympathizers and anti-Sematic foreign exchange students in America’s universities.
Khalil was a negotiator and spokesperson for the Columbia University Apartheid Divest. In their official substack, the CUAD offers what can only be described as a manifesto of Jewish hate and the reverence of terrorism.
[…]According to U.S. Code § 1182, it listed all aliens who are inadmissible and ineligible to receive visas and in turn, ineligible to be admitted to the United States. The law stated in clause (B) (iv) (bb) that anyone who was “a representative of a political, social, or other group that endorses or espouses terrorist activity,” can have their visas revoked and be removed from the United States. “Representative” in this context includes an officer, official, or spokesperson. Remember that Khalil has admitted to being a spokesperson for the CUAD.
While this clause doesn’t apply specifically to green card holders, it can still be used as grounds of removal if the person was found to be supporting terrorism.
Still, Seck offered no evidence Khalil explicitly and publicly supports terrorism; rather, he played more guilt-by-association:
Khalil was the spokesperson for CUAD, this group used Zionist and Jews interchangeably and essentially called for the destruction of Israel. This, of course, breeds hate and anti-Semitism within the protests, for him to claim there’s no place among an obvious hate group is ignorant. How can you be the spokesperson and not have knowledge of all of this going on?
Bonilla returned for a June 24 post ranting about another Khalil interview, which he creepily called a “tongue bath”:
A federal judge ordered the release of Columbia student agitator and protest organizer Mahmoud Khalil from ICE detention. Naturally, it was a matter of time before the legacy media fell over themselves to score that exclusive interview. ABC News ended up scoring the interview, and it was as disgusting as you’d expect.
The interview, conducted by 2024 presidential debate co-moderator Linsey Davis, proves yet again that the media will grab onto anyone that can stand in as Resistance. This was not a hard-hitting news interview, but celebrity fluff.
The tell that this was a celebrity interview was its opening with a “feelings” question, wherein Khalil was asked to describe the moment he saw his wife and son.
[…]The interview, although terrible on its face, might have been passably tolerable were it actual celebrity fluff as opposed to what is supposed to be a “hard news” interview of someone who is accused of acting in support of Hamas, a designated terror organization. However, the number of material omissions of fact move the item from terrible to incandescently awful and perhaps, as reasonable people might conclude, terror propaganda.
October 7th is only mentioned in passing as a historical point of reference for the campus protests instigated by Khalil, among others. But there is no mention of the barbaric, medieval attack that happened on that date- planned and executed by Hamas.
With regard to the campus protests, there is no mention of the disruption to the learning environment or the property damage they caused. More egregiously, there is no mention of the fear felt by many Jewish students on campus other than a quote of Secretary of State Marco Rubio alluding to Khalil creating an “environment of harassment”.
Unsurprisingly, there was no mention of Khalil’s return to Columbia protests. So much for changing poopy diapers!
We thought the MRC was a champion of free speech, so it’s a bit odd that Bonilla wants to withdraw Khalil’s free speech rights.