The Department of Justice has opened a serious probe into what federal officials are calling a violent riot that erupted around a Turning Point USA campus event, a distressing reminder that political violence now stalks college walkways. Americans who still believe in free speech should be alarmed that conservative students and speakers were met not with debate but with masks, smoke bombs, and brawling activists. This is not peaceful protest — it is targeted intimidation meant to shut down ideas that don’t conform to a radical left-wing orthodoxy.
Video and eyewitness accounts from the scene show mobs trying to breach police lines, attendees bloodied, and multiple arrests — exactly the kind of chaos our institutions used to condemn regardless of politics. Local law enforcement struggled to control the mayhem while the university scrambled to distance itself from “outside agitators.” If colleges are to remain marketplaces of ideas, administrators must stop pretending violence is a mere byproduct of disagreement.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s appearance discussing the DOJ inquiry came alongside a broader pattern: this DOJ is finally treating political violence as the criminal issue it is, not a moral gray area to be rationalized away. Conservatives should welcome a Justice Department that protects students’ right to speak without fear, and that follows the leads to whoever organized and funded these attacks. The people who send masked hordes to silence speech must be held to account under the law — no excuses, no soft-pedaling.
At the same time, Deputy AG Blanche’s high-profile interviews in the Epstein probe have sent Washington into a tailspin, and they deserve scrutiny from every American who cares about accountability. Blanche’s sit-downs with Ghislaine Maxwell and the DOJ’s release of interview material have renewed questions about powerful networks, and Democrats who long dismissed scrutiny now find themselves under the light they demanded for others. Whatever your politics, Americans must demand that the full truth about Epstein’s operation be uncovered and that no political favorites get a pass.
This new, prosecutorial muscle is also being tested in courtroom fights with blue-run jurisdictions like California and Chicago, where the Justice Department has taken on sanctuary and public-safety policies that protect criminals and hobble federal enforcement. Lower courts have pushed back at times, but the fundamental question is simple: will federal law and public safety matter more than political theater in coastal strongholds? Conservatives should support an administration willing to litigate for border security and for the protection of federal officers rather than surrendering to lawlessness.
Make no mistake: the violence aimed at Turning Point USA was neither spontaneous nor noble. It is the predictable outcome of years of permissive rhetoric from elite institutions and left-wing leaders who reward disruption. The DOJ’s investigation — and its work on Epstein files and fights with recalcitrant cities and states — is a chance to restore order, defend free speech, and expose the financiers and organizers behind the chaos. Patriots who love this country should stand with law enforcement, demand full accountability, and refuse to let radical activists turn our campuses into battlegrounds where only one viewpoint survives.
