WASHINGTON: First the nation's top law firms. Then its premier universities. Now, President Donald Trump is leaning on the advocacy groups that underpin US civil society.
Trump said Thursday that the administration is looking at the tax-exempt status not just of Harvard, but environmental groups and specifically the ethics watchdog organisation Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW. It could be a devastating financial blow to the nonprofit organisations — and his perceived political foes.
Early this week, President Trump escalated his war against elite US universities with a threat to strip Harvard's tax-exempt status if the country's most famous educational establishment refuses to submit to wide-ranging government oversight.
Harvard stands out for defying Trump, in contrast to several other universities and a string of powerful law firms that have folded under intense pressure from the White House in its crackdown on American institutions.
The threat of a major tax bill comes after Harvard already lost $2.2 billion in federal funding on Monday.
Trump said non-profit Harvard "should lose its Tax Exempt Status and be Taxed as a Political Entity" if it does not submit to his demands for the college to change the way it runs itself, including selection of students and authority for professors.
Tax-exempt status is "totally contingent on acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST," he added in the post on his Truth Social network.
Trump and his White House team have justified their pressure campaign on universities as a reaction to what they say is uncontrolled anti-Semitism and support for the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Their allegations are based on controversy at protests against Israel's genocidal war in Gaza that swept across campuses last year.
Columbia University in New York -- an epicenter of the protests -- stood down last month and agreed to oversight of its Middle Eastern department after being threatened with a loss of $400 million in federal funds.