One of O.J. Simpson’s closest friends and most vocal defenders is waging President Donald Trump’s war against Harvard.
Leo Terrell, a former Fox News contributor whom Trump appointed to his Justice Department, heads the the “Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism,” which was created in February to “root out antisemitic harassment in schools and on college campuses” in the wake of pro-Palestine protests.
The group has aggressively confronted some of the country’s richest and most prestigious universities, withholding $400 million in federal funds from Columbia until it folded to the task force’s demands. It’s now entering a similar battle with Harvard—freezing more than $2 billion in funds, though the nation’s oldest university has so far refused to back down.
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Terrell, 70, a civil rights attorney, has emerged as a fierce negotiator on Trump’s behalf according to The Wall Street Journal. On Fox News last month, he vowed to “bankrupt these universities” if they don’t “play ball.” A longtime registered Democrat, he came out in support of Trump in 2020.
In the 1990s, though, Terrell made waves for a different reason: he was a friend and outspoken supporter of Simpson, star former NFL running back, while he was tried for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman.
Terrell often cropped up as a talking head in news reports out of the media frenzy that enveloped Simpson, offering commentary on the racial divide spurred by the trial.
“Some African-Americans would look at Denise as a white woman who has received a lot of benefits from an African-American man and yet has now turned on him,” he told Newsweek of Brown’s sister, who testified against Simpson, in 1995.
Reflecting on the trial in 2018, Terrell recalled, “I was in his house every day. His family allowed me to come in. I spoke to his entire family, and I developed a relationship with him.”
Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995—although he was later found civilly liable to the tune of over $30 million. However, he wound up spending 10 years in prison, 2007 to 2017, after he was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping.
When Simpson died from cancer in 2024, Terrell offered a tribute on Fox News.
“His life was tortured after [the murder acquittal] one way or another, because the life he lived before 1994—football celebrity, TV announcer, pitchman—he lost all of that,” Terrell said, citing his personal relationship with the family. “O.J. Simpson had a lot of pride, and he lost that.”
Now, Terrell has moved on to playing hardball with the Ivy League. His task force is currently fighting for a slew of Trumpian policy changes at Harvard, including eliminating DEI initiatives, banning face masks at protests, and harshly disciplining student protestors. Harvard has refused.
In a Truth Social post on Tuesday, Trump threatened to pull the university’s tax-exempt status if it didn’t comply. He accused it of “pushing political, ideological, and terrorist inspired/supporting ‘Sickness.’”
Terrell’s tenure as Trump’s chief anti-semitism battler hasn’t been without hiccups. Last month, Terrell caught heat after he boosted a post from a white nationalist praising Trump for “revoking” Jewish Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer’s “Jew card.”
Read it at THIS TIME HE WON'T ACQUIT
