An Open Letter To Jay Bhattacharya, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and J.D. Vance
I appear to be on a bit of an open-letter spree these days. This one is not one I wanted to write. It isn’t satirical, or particularly funny. And the timing really sucks. But I have this “need to be able to look myself in the face in the mirror in the morning” problem, which is to say, I need to be able to do that. So here goes …
April 12, 2025
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya
J.D. Vance
MAGA Headquarters
Washington DC
America (Made Great Again)
Dear Bobby, Jay, and Vice President Vance,
First, thank you all for your attention to my legal case here in Germany, where I am being prosecuted for using the cover art of one of my books to criticize the German authorities’ Covid measures during 2020-2023. You are all aware of the details of my case, as are my regular readers, so I won’t reiterate all that here. (For readers who are not familiar with my case, see, e.g., my 2023 talk with Robert Kennedy Jr., or my 2024 talk with Jay Bhattacharya, or other interviews and press coverage about it.)
On March 8, Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian student activist was arrested in New York by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents acting on orders from the US State Department and transported to a detention center in Louisiana. The Trump administration is trying to revoke Khalil’s permanent-resident status and deport him.
Mahmoud Khalil has not been charged with any criminal offense. The administration (of which you are all members) is detaining him and trying to deport him based on the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which provides that “aliens” in the USA can be deported if the secretary of state believes their presence has or might have negative consequences for US foreign policy.
Yesterday, an immigration court in Louisiana ruled that Khalil can be deported based solely on Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s claim that his continued presence poses an “adverse foreign policy consequence.”
There is, in principle, no difference between Khalil’s case and my case. We are both being punished for political speech. We are both “aliens” living in foreign countries with permanent-residency status. According to the German authorities, my political speech poses just as much of a negative consequence to Germany as Khalil’s speech does to the USA. (In fact, I have been charged with a crime, whereas Khalil has not.)
The German authorities are instrumentalizing the law in order to punish me, and to send a message by making an example of me. The Trump administration is doing the same with the Khalil case. The only difference between our cases is the nature of our political speech.
You have each expressed support for me and criticism of the authoritarian behavior of the German authorities in my case. Bobby and Jay, we spoke about it on your podcasts. Vice President Vance, you recently tweeted about it on X. Earlier this year, you gave a speech in Munich castigating the European authorities for, among other things, their disregard for freedom of speech. Blurbs by each of you are featured on the back cover of my forthcoming book, Fear and Loathing in the New Normal Reich, which documents my prosecution in Germany.
And yet, despite your statements in defense of freedom of speech and the rule of law, now that the Trump administration is exhibiting the same authoritarian behavior as the German government, you are either supporting it or remaining silent about it.
I’m not writing this letter to snark at you or scold you. What is unfolding in the USA, and the lack of response to it by so many people like yourselves who spoke up against the authoritarian behavior of governments during 2020-2023, is breaking my heart.
What is perhaps most damaging, and most heartbreaking, about the double standards on display, both here in Germany and in the USA, is how it destroys people’s belief in democratic principles, like freedom of speech and the rule of law. When governments blatantly instrumentalize and cynically interpret statutes to justify punishing political dissent and intimidating the public into silence and obedience, it doesn’t fool anyone. We all recognize what they are doing. We get the message they are sending. The tactic wouldn’t work if we didn’t.
The message is that our “democratic rights and principles” are meaningless. They are empty platitudes, which will be violated whenever it is convenient to whichever party is in power. They will be sanctimoniously recited whenever one party wants to shame another political party—or another country, or union of countries—and then ignored and made a mockery of the moment it is expedient.
The message is that power rules, and power makes up the rules, because there are no rules, and anyone who sincerely believes in “democracy” and “democratic principles” is a sucker. The message is, “Fuck your rights. Shut the fuck up and follow orders, or we will punish you.”
You will remember the message from back in 2021, when everyone was forced to wear medical-looking masks in public and perform all sorts of humiliating mass-obedience rituals to generate an atmosphere of “apocalyptic pandemic” …
And how, when we objected, Arnold delivered the message again, more bluntly …
Here it is, the same message, delivered yesterday, from the White House …
And again, from the Department of Homeland Security …
And again, from the US Immigration Services …
I’m not going to go on and on in this letter. You all know what your administration is doing. I’m aware of your justifications for doing it. The German authorities also have their justifications for what they’re doing to me. They can cite the statute that allows them to do it (i.e., § 86a StGB Use of Symbols of Unconstitutional Organizations) just like you can cite the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.
The question is not “can you get away with it?” In my case, Germany’s Constitutional Court (the Bundesverfassungsgericht) will decide on that. In Mahmoud Khalil’s case, the US Supreme Court probably will. However, by the time that happens, the damage will have been done.
No, the question—not just for you and the rest of your administration, but for each of us as individuals—is “can I live with this?” “Can I let this happen and not speak out?”
Bobby and Jay, though we have only met online, I believe you know me well enough to know my answer to that question. Vice President Vance, we’ve never met, but I would like to believe that somewhere deep down, all politics aside, you actually value what is left of our democratic rights and principles, or at least the right to freedom of speech.
So, I am asking you all, please, stop this. Set an example by holding to your principles. Your democratic principles. Your American principles. Speak out, as you have for me. Speak out against your administration’s blatant crackdown on political dissent. Speak out against the Salvadoran gulag thing. Speak out against the increasingly totalitarian tenor of your administration’s messaging. Speak out against the dystopian spectacle it is feeding the revenge-hungry MAGA masses.
Bobby and Jay, I appreciate the positions you are in, and my heart goes out to you, but if you do not speak out now, you will undo all the good you did during the “Covid era.” Your protests against the Covid authoritarianism will be dismissed as hypocrisy. Your word will mean nothing. You will be seen as just another partisan soldier who will say whatever he is ordered to say and look the other way when expected.
Personally, I cannot imagine a worse fate.
Vice President Vance, we don’t know each other, but I read somewhere that you are a Christian. I’m not, but if I remember my New Testament, your guy was pretty tough on hypocrisy and hypocrites. And rightfully so. Apart from the “shutting the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces” thing … well, no one likes, or trusts, a hypocrite.
All best wishes from New Normal Berlin,
CJ
