Terrell, in the meantime, rebranded himself as “Leo 2.0,” full with crimson Trump-style caps he supplied on the market on-line. Leo 1.0 had slammed Trump for cozying as much as white supremacists, blamed him for a surge in violent assaults on Jews and donated to Democrats. Leo 2.0? He attacked “DEI nonsense,” in contrast Black Lives Matter to ISIS and declared the 2020 election was “stolen from President Trump and America!”
In January, Terrell was rewarded for his loyalty when President-elect Trump, praising him as a “highly respected civil rights attorney and political analyst” with an “incredibly successful career,” named him senior counsel to the assistant legal professional basic for civil rights within the Justice Division. Terrell assumed his marquee position a month later: as head of the multiagency Process Pressure to Fight Anti-Semitism.
Leo Terrell celebrated his appointment as senior counsel to the assistant legal professional basic of the Division of Justice’s Civil Rights Division in an Instagram put up on Jan. 23.
As a Black, Christian former Democrat with little earlier engagement with Jewish causes, Terrell, now 70, appeared an unbelievable decide to steer the hassle to “root out anti-Semitic harassment in schools and on college campuses,” as the duty pressure announcement put it. However his zealous conversion and penchant for media bombast made him an ideal bullhorn for the duty pressure’s precise mission: to strong-arm faculties into stripping away any vestige of “wokeness” of their hiring, admissions, courses and analysis.
In service of that objective, the federal government has deserted due course of in favor of media warfare, preemptive declarations of guilt and freezes on billions in essential federal funding.
Terrell has turn into a useful participant on this extraordinary strain marketing campaign. Earlier than many of the process pressure’s investigations had even launched, he publicly promised “massive lawsuits” towards “Jew-hating” universities, together with Harvard, the College of California, Los Angeles and dozens of others.
To date, the marketing campaign has been efficient. To protect lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in federal grants and contracts, Columbia and Brown have struck offers with the administration that price them $220 million and $50 million, respectively, and go far past pledging harder motion to fight antisemitism. Columbia agreed to open tutorial packages and admissions choices to outdoors monitoring. Brown pledged to ban transgender ladies from single-sex areas and ladies’s sports activities. Harvard has sued the administration to attempt to unfreeze $2.6 billion in federal analysis funds, nevertheless it’s additionally making an attempt to barter a settlement. In the meantime, faculties nationwide are eliminating any remaining vestiges of range, fairness and inclusion packages and shuttering multicultural facilities lest the federal government come after them.
Amid the upheaval Trump’s process pressure has helped to sow, the historical past, motivations and conduct of its blustery chief have gone largely unexamined. ProPublica and The Chronicle of Increased Schooling interviewed dozens of individuals whose paths have intersected with Terrell’s and reviewed hundreds of pages of courtroom paperwork and monetary data associated to his profession and life.
The portrait that emerged is dramatically at odds with Trump’s description of a “highly respected” and “incredibly successful” legal professional. Friends in civil rights regulation mentioned they all the time thought of Terrell a minor participant. Paperwork reveal a distinctly combined authorized observe document, marred by malpractice fits, consumer disputes and mishandling a legal case so badly {that a} federal appeals courtroom lambasted his work as “woeful.”
Till his MAGA conversion, Terrell was beset by a litany of monetary troubles, together with practically $400,000 in unpaid federal taxes, a private chapter submitting and a path of courtroom judgments and liens introduced by small companies that labored for his regulation agency.
Present and former legal professionals on the Justice Division say Terrell is much less engaged with assessing circumstances or negotiating settlements than he’s with scaring universities into submission. They are saying he’s voiced open disdain for what he calls “lawyer talk,” berating profession workers who attempt to observe correct procedures for investigating civil rights complaints.
Regardless of his urge for food for media consideration, Terrell has volunteered little about himself. Mates and neighbors recall him strolling a canine and bicycling and his fondness for golf. Within the “about the author” part for a self-published guide, he wrote: “In his spare time, Mr. Terrell likes to work. His hobbies are work and working.”
Terrell declined an interview request for this story and didn’t reply to written questions. In a short cellphone dialog with a reporter, he defined, “I don’t do interviews with my life.” Informed some particulars of our reporting, he added, “I’m not going to comment on anything,” and, lastly, “I’m going to hang up respectfully.”
It’s unclear whether or not Terrell’s earlier troubles turned up in administration vetting for his present job. Officers on the Justice Division and White Home didn’t reply to questions on Terrell’s position or his background.
Jewish activists are divided on Terrell’s strategy, with some lauding it for rooting out anti-Jewish sentiment that emerged on campuses throughout pro-Palestinian protests and others bemoaning how he’s weaponized antisemitism.
Kenneth Marcus, an Schooling Division official within the first Trump administration who has spent years agitating for stronger federal motion towards campus antisemitism, is a fan. “What the president has gotten in Terrell,” Marcus mentioned, “is someone with unique skills in delivering public messaging.”
That messaging is camouflage, in keeping with Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, a nationwide community of Jewish teams. “No one should be under any illusion that this is about keeping Jewish students or faculty safe,” she mentioned. “Gutting cancer and Alzheimer’s research does nothing to keep them safe.”
***
Terrell grew up in Carson, in south Los Angeles County, the fourth of seven siblings. Regulation was his second profession, following a decade as a historical past and economics trainer within the Los Angeles public faculties. He graduated from UCLA Faculty of Regulation in 1990 and opened his personal civil rights agency in Beverly Hills.
Virtually instantly, Terrell started making a reputation for himself as a media persona with a decidedly progressive voice, changing into higher identified for his TV and radio commentary than for his courtroom achievements.
Beginning in 1991, after the police beating of a Black man, Rodney King, Terrell turned a daily on native and nationwide TV and radio condemning police brutality and racial injustice. Three years later, he snagged his breakthrough commentating gig: as a buddy and supporter of O.J. Simpson. Terrell’s position as a Simpson trial analyst produced a green-room friendship with Larry Elder, a conservative Black radio host in Los Angeles, who helped Terrell land his personal speak present. “I thought he was smart, feisty, opinionated and entertaining,” Elder recalled. “I thought he would be good radio, despite my disagreement with virtually everything he stood for at the time.”
Distinguished Los Angeles legal professionals mentioned he was by no means a giant participant within the metropolis’s civil rights neighborhood. Carl Douglas, a part of the Simpson protection staff, mentioned “Leo was always a talker,” not “a baller.” Connie Rice, former western regional counsel for the NAACP Authorized Protection and Instructional Fund, mentioned Terrell “was never at the table for the big cases that made impact. He loved holding press conferences.”
Terrell represented a Black teenager who’d been expelled from a Los Angeles highschool for punching a white referee throughout a soccer recreation after the referee allegedly had directed racial epithets at him. He took up the reason for a mentally unwell, homeless Black girl who’d been fatally shot by LA police after she wielded a 12-inch screwdriver at officers desirous to query whether or not she’d stolen a buying cart. (No legal costs have been introduced towards the officers, however Terrell received a $975,000 settlement for her household.)
Leo Terrell gestures throughout an Aug. 1999 discussion board held by the Congressional Black Caucus in Los Angeles.
Now scornful of “woke” practices and bias claims, Terrell as soon as represented himself in a race-discrimination case towards a parking firm after a storage attendant refused to honor his free-parking validation from a shopping center and instructed him he owed $10. A supervisor let Terrell depart with out paying, however he nonetheless sued, saying he was singled out for being Black and demanding damages for “humiliation, mental anguish and severe emotional distress.” The go well with was later settled for a confidential quantity. Reached three a long time later, an legal professional for the parking firm known as Terrell’s lawsuit “absurd — the worst discrimination case I’ve ever seen.”
Terrell all the time had facet gigs: he self-published a guide on office rights; he supplied enterprise consultations, company coaching seminars and mediations; he had a 900 quantity that charged $5 for the primary minute and $2 for every extra minute for authorized consultations.
In 2001, he ran unsuccessfully first for Congress, then two years later for Los Angeles Metropolis Council. He routinely promoted himself as “an NAACP attorney,” although the group mentioned he’d by no means been employed there.
William Bloch, a veteran Los Angeles lawyer who introduced two malpractice circumstances towards Terrell, mentioned Terrell acted as “the carnival barker” to draw enterprise, then didn’t do the mandatory authorized work. In a single sex-discrimination case, in keeping with the ensuing malpractice go well with introduced by Bloch, Terrell accepted a settlement from town of Beverly Hills for “a pittance” regardless of specific directions from his consumer, a feminine police officer, to zealously pursue her declare. Bloch persuaded an appeals courtroom to undo the settlement. After the officer acquired a $100,000 award, plus cash for legal professional charges and prices, she dropped the case towards Terrell. Within the second matter, a jail worker for town of Beverly Hills mentioned she paid $6,000 to retain Terrell in 2009 after he “boasted of huge verdicts and settlements,” solely to have him settle for a $1,000 settlement from town with out her permission. In line with her declare, Terrell performed “little or no discovery, including taking no depositions.” The case was settled for a confidential quantity, with no acknowledgement by Terrell of wrongdoing.
In courtroom filings, Terrell denied any negligence or accountability for hurt to his shoppers, insisting that they had permitted all of his actions and saying legal professionals are “not a guarantor of the results of any professional services.”
“He’s a discredit to the legal profession,” Bloch mentioned.
A low level in Terrell’s authorized profession started in October 2009, when he was retained by the dad and mom of Emond Logan, a 48-year-old California truck driver alleged to have transported greater than a ton of cocaine to western Michigan as a part of a multistate drug conspiracy.
Terrell hardly ever took on legal circumstances, however he’d performed Little League baseball with Logan, whose household approached him after listening to his radio present. Terrell demanded a $100,000 retainer. To pay it, Logan’s father offered a lot of his inventory from greater than 30 years at Pacific Bell Phone and borrowed cash from his daughter.
Logan confronted overwhelming proof: a pacesetter of the drug gang had testified towards him, and the arresting brokers had seized 5 automobiles (together with a Maserati), three Rolex watches and a $125,000 diamond ring, objects effectively past his truck-driving earnings. His court-appointed lawyer had negotiated a plea settlement capping Logan’s jail time at 10 years.
Nonetheless, Terrell urged Logan to explode his “bullshit” deal, in keeping with transcripts of their recorded jailhouse calls and Logan’s later testimony. Logan adopted Terrell’s recommendation, regardless of prosecution warnings that such comparatively beneficiant phrases can be off the desk. Terrell organized for Logan’s pretrial launch on bond. 4 months later, Logan was again in custody after a authorities informant taped him threatening to kill his federal prosecutor. Terrell then urged him to just accept a brand new plea provide, with no cap, and Logan was sentenced to 35 years in jail.
Terrell “didn’t do what he was supposed to do for the money,” Eugene Logan, Emond’s 93-year-old father, mentioned in a phone interview. “He told us he could get him off. If he’d taken the plea, he’d be out by now.”
Two courts denied Emond Logan’s makes an attempt to get his sentence overturned primarily based on Terrell’s counsel, however they excoriated Terrell’s lawyering. U.S. District Decide Paul Maloney wrote in a 2017 resolution that Terrell had offered “abysmal advice.” A yr later, the sixth U.S. Circuit Court docket of Appeals decried Terrell’s “woeful representation” and mentioned his general conduct mirrored “poorly on the profession.”
***
Terrell’s troubled authorized observe left him with a worsening tangle of monetary issues. Between 2004 and 2015, the IRS filed 11 liens towards him for practically $400,000 in unpaid taxes relationship again to 1997. In October 2010, Terrell filed for Chapter 7 chapter safety, reporting $736,938 in liabilities, $304,650 in belongings and month-to-month earnings of simply $4,000. As a result of he stopped showing for required conferences, his chapter case was dismissed and none of his obligations have been legally erased. Throughout this era, Terrell took out six new mortgage loans towards his three-bedroom West LA condominium. The property was offered at foreclosures in 2013.
Lorita Seaton was certainly one of Terrell’s many unpaid collectors. She’d loaned him $40,000 in 2008 after he mentioned he wanted it to assist cowl his prices for a pending discrimination go well with towards Costco. In trade, Terrell had signed a promissory be aware committing to pay her $60,000 by year-end. By February 2009, courtroom data present, Terrell had received $422,000 at trial for his consumer and a further $510,818 in authorized charges and prices. But Seaton mentioned she by no means obtained a penny.
“He had the audacity to tell me ‘there’s nothing you can do about it,’” she mentioned in an interview. “I want to go stand on the mountain and just holler about this asshole.”
Leo Terrell speaks throughout an April 2005 information convention in Beverly Hills, Calif.
Between 2006 and 2014, greater than a dozen small distributors for Terrell’s regulation agency went to courtroom searching for to gather greater than $170,000 in unpaid payments. A&B Reporting complained that it had ready greater than 30 deposition transcripts for Terrell, billing him greater than $40,000 that remained unpaid. In line with the corporate’s 2011 lawsuit, Terrell lastly despatched a $5,000 test — which bounced.
In February 2014, as his non-public monetary straits worsened, Terrell formally up to date his regulation workplace handle: from the Beverly Hills tower the place he’d labored for greater than 20 years to a “suite” on Santa Monica Boulevard, which was really a mailbox at a UPS retailer. He has filed only a single case in federal courtroom since that yr, in keeping with PACER, a public database of courtroom filings and dockets.
Terrell ultimately paid off or settled a few of his money owed, however there’s no document of him paying the IRS or lots of his different collectors, whose authorized claims sometimes expire after 10 years in California until they’re renewed.
In line with publicly filed liens, he nonetheless owed the IRS $92,000 in the beginning of 2024. But on the monetary disclosure he filed for his Justice Division job, which lined that interval, he listed his liabilities as “none.”
Neither Terrell nor the Division of Justice responded to requests for remark about this omission.
***
In interviews on Fox and different conservative retailers, Terrell supplied two causes for his ideological makeover. The primary was the rising affect of the Black Lives Matter motion, which he complained had “hijacked” the Democratic Get together, citing far-left calls to “defund the police.” He additionally objected to Joe Biden’s remark throughout an interview with a Black radio host that “if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t Black,” calling it “offensive and insulting to every African American because we don’t vote as one group.”
Over the subsequent 4 years, Terrell displayed the fervor of the transformed. Biden was an “idiot”; Kamala Harris (whose title he repeatedly mispronounced) was solely chosen as his working mate “because she’s a woman and because of her race.” Democrats have been members of the “anti-Israel” and “pro-Hamas party.” Far-right agitator Laura Loomer was “a journalist,” whereas NBC’s Kristen Welker was “a DEI hire.” In 2023, Terrell made a pilgrimage to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, the place he posed poolside, making a thumbs-up gesture. Shortly earlier than beginning his Justice Division gig, Terrell made positive he was leaving no culture-war stone unturned. “I hate anti-Semitism! I hate attacks on Catholic Families! I hate attacks on parents expressing their First Amendment Rights at School Board Meetings! I hate Sanctuary Cities! I hate DEI! I hate Critical Race Theory!” he declared on X.
“I love this guy,” Trump gushed, introducing “Leo 2.0” in February at a White Home commemoration of Black Historical past Month. “He was a radical Democrat, he became a radical Republican.” Terrell returned the love, telling the viewers: “We are in the presence of the greatest president of all time!”
What motivated him? Larry Elder, who was on air with Terrell as he introduced his conversion and coined the nickname “Leo 2.0,” declined to take a position: “I really don’t care about why Leo did his 180. I’m just glad he finally did!”
If it’s a efficiency, it’s one Terrell has continued on the Justice Division, the place the impact of his pugnacious type and footloose strategy to the regulation has alarmed profession workers accustomed to following strict guidelines relating to regulatory due course of.
“That’s lawyer talk!” Terrell often thundered to Justice Division legal professionals. “I don’t want to hear any lawyer talk!”
Donald Trump speaks with members of regulation enforcement and Nationwide Guard troopers on Aug. 21 in Washington, D.C., as Inside Secretary Doug Burgum, Lawyer Common Pam Bondi, U.S. Lawyer for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro and Leo Terrell pay attention.
Within the days after his Jan. 23 appointment, a number of mentioned, Terrell emphatically rejected efforts by company veterans to elucidate the legally required steps to convey civil rights complaints towards universities.
“Leo did not want to hear our views about how to investigate, how to find a violation, how to proceed in these cases,” mentioned a Justice Division veteran who heard Terrell’s feedback. “No ‘lawyer talk’ at the Justice Department! It was just incredibly bizarre.” The legal professional was certainly one of 10 present and former legal professionals with the company’s Civil Rights Division interviewed for this story, most of whom requested to not be named for concern of retaliation.
At one other assembly early in his tenure, Terrell instructed profession Justice Division attorneys he thought they have been out to thwart his agenda, in keeping with two attendees. “He immediately came in and openly told us that he did not trust any of us or believe anything we said,” one recalled.
The Justice Division antisemitism process pressure, which incorporates officers from the Division of Well being and Human Providers, the Division of Schooling and the Common Providers Administration, was introduced on Feb. 3. It instantly introduced antisemitism investigations of 4 medical faculties relating to “offensive” pro-Palestinian “symbols and messaging” displayed by college students throughout their 2024 graduation ceremonies. Then, over the subsequent 5 weeks, the duty pressure and Trump administration introduced plans to analyze 10 universities; the “immediate” cancellation of lots of of thousands and thousands in federal funding for Columbia; an investigation of your entire College of California System; and “potential enforcement actions” towards 60 faculties in 24 states.
It’s not clear whether or not Terrell had a hand in selecting the duty pressure’s targets, however he took the lead in making the federal government’s case towards them publicly.
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“The academic system in this country has been hijacked by the left,” he declared, “has been hijacked by the Marxists!”
4 days later, the duty pressure introduced plans to fulfill with leaders of 4 cities “rocked” by campus antisemitism (New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Chicago) to find out whether or not federal intervention was warranted.
Profession civil rights officers, lots of whom had served underneath each Democratic and Republican administrations, have been horrified. The Justice Division didn’t publicly announce who it was investigating or deliberate to sue. It didn’t attain findings earlier than it had discovered trigger in a accomplished investigation that sometimes takes months and even years. And investigating Democratic leaders in “blue cities” within the title of preventing campus antisemitism was far outdoors the division’s cost.
“The process is turned upside down,” mentioned Ejaz Baluch, a senior trial legal professional within the Civil Rights Division who left in Could and is now a lecturer at Columbia Regulation Faculty. “We were given a conclusion and told to find supporting evidence to justify it. It’s basically civil rights enforcement as a political tool. These things don’t actually solve antisemitism. It’s about silencing political dissent they disagree with.” Former civil rights deputy chief Jen Swedish, who labored on the Justice Division for 15 years, known as the actions “cover for attacking higher ed.”
Again in early February, a division-wide posting searching for attorneys to assist workers the antisemitism process pressure had drawn simply three volunteers. Harmeet Dhillon, Trump’s appointee as assistant legal professional basic for civil rights (and certainly one of his former private legal professionals), later instructed a Federalist Society convention that this revealed the profession workers’s lack of concern about antisemitism.
Present and former division attorneys interviewed by ProPublica and The Chronicle mentioned the legal professionals had misgivings concerning the administration’s ways and have been reluctant to work with Terrell, who already had a status for berating staffers. One mentioned he’d repeatedly yelled at her.
A memorable episode got here in March, when Terrell loudly berated a revered 82-year-old civil rights legal professional, Franz Marshall, over the failure to rapidly terminate federal oversight in a Louisiana faculty desegregation case, a objective of Republican state officers.
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Marshall, who had represented the federal government in lots of of desegregation circumstances over 5 a long time, tried to elucidate that closing the case required a movement by the varsity district to raise the order, which the Justice Division may assist or oppose, and evaluate by a federal choose.
“Who told you that you had to do it this way?” Terrell interrupted. “I want you to name names!”
“This is the process,” Marshall assured him. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
“Well, maybe you’ve been doing it for too long!” Terrell snapped. The tirade, which lasted practically an hour, was audible to dozens of attorneys ready outdoors the convention room for an upcoming assembly.
Marshall (who couldn’t be reached for remark) resigned a short while later, becoming a member of a wholesale exodus from resignations, firings and reassignments that has totaled about 70% of the Civil Rights Division’s 365 attorneys since January. The Louisiana consent decree was lifted on April 29.
In late April, Terrell had convened a gathering with a few of the remaining legal professionals to deal with considerations about working with him. “That crazy guy you see on TV is not here,” he insisted, in keeping with one attendee. “The guy before you is a civil rights attorney. There’s an urban myth that I scream and yell. I’ve never yelled in my life.”
There’s little proof Terrell has been instantly concerned in negotiations with campuses underneath investigation; as an alternative, these seem to have been more and more steered by the White Home. Terrell has voiced mistrust of any bargaining, preferring to “lay the hammer on them with lawsuits,” as he instructed Justice Division legal professionals in an April assembly. In mid-July, when phrase leaked that the Trump administration was about to announce an settlement with Columbia to revive its funding, Terrell questioned whether or not it was powerful sufficient.
“I will not ‘SELLOUT’ Jewish Americans,” he posted on X. “NO DEALS!”
Six days later, the administration introduced a $221 million settlement with Columbia, setting the stage for a string of comparable offers with different faculties.
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The extremism of Terrell’s messaging additionally doesn’t trouble Dov Hikind, a former New York state Democratic assemblyman representing Brooklyn and the founding father of People In opposition to Antisemitism. “If Leo Terrell and others are speaking tough, I don’t lose any sleep over that.”
Whether or not Terrell is nice for Jews or dangerous for Jews, his conversion has definitely been good for him. Leo 2.0 now has 2.5 million followers on his private X account, and his talking charge runs between $50,000 and $100,000; his authorities wage is $167,603. Terrell has attained “a rock star persona” within the Trump administration, mentioned Kenneth Marcus, the previous Schooling Division official and antisemitism activist. “People are very much drawn to him in a way that’s disproportionate to his rank in the federal government.”
There’s no signal administration officers, together with Terrell, will let up of their marketing campaign towards greater training. Since late July, at the same time as negotiations with Harvard dragged on and Brown’s settlement was introduced, the administration froze $108 million in funding from Duke College’s medical system, citing “systemic racial discrimination” in hiring and admissions. It additionally halted greater than $584 million from UCLA as punishment for tolerating a “hostile environment” for Jews and demanded $1 billion to revive the movement of presidency cash. Duke has not publicly responded to the discrimination complaints. The College of California’s president, James B. Milliken, has pledged to work with the administration, however he mentioned a $1 billion penalty would “completely devastate our country’s greatest public university system.”
Different faculties are simply making an attempt to remain out of the administration’s dragnet — and Terrell’s sights.
“He’s scared schools stiff, so everyone is scrambling,” mentioned Brett Sokolow, an legal professional and better training marketing consultant whom school and college leaders have turned to for recommendation.
Terrell’s strategy, he mentioned, is “way over the top — and effective as hell.”
