Comrade Lutnick threatens to liquidate the Charles River Kulaks

Remember when John Roberts compared Biden reducing student loan debt with black letter statutory authorization to the Jacobins?

The Trump administration is warning Harvard University that it could take over its patents, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, if a review finds the university hasn’t complied with federal law, an escalation of the continuing negotiations between the White House and America’s oldest university. 

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick sent a letter to Harvard President Alan Garber on Friday, telling him the administration planned to do a thorough review of all patents held by the university. 

“We believe that Harvard has failed to live up to its obligations to the American taxpayer and is in breach of the statutory, regulatory, and contractual requirements tied to Harvard’s federally funded research programs and intellectual property arising therefrom, including patents,” the letter says. 

A Harvard spokesperson called the move “yet another retaliatory effort targeting Harvard for defending its rights and freedom.” The university’s technology and patents help save lives and redefine industries, and Harvard is committed to complying with all federal laws around the patenting of work from federally funded research, the spokesperson said.

I’m so old I remember that Republicans wrote out all these plans, this began to attract negative public attention, Trump lied about it, and then the political press agreed to quickly drop the whole thing.