Congresswoman's charges fuel claims of intimidation of Trump critics

Washington Post

21-05-2025

In April, the Justice Department arrested a Wisconsin judge accused of helping an undocumented immigrant try to evade arrest by federal authorities. Three weeks later, the Secret Service launched a probe into former FBI director James B. Comey over a social media post it said amounted to a threat against President Donald Trump. And this week, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey charged a member of Congress with assault after she was accused of slamming her forearms against federal agents.
Trump officials have said their moves are about ending the politicization of law enforcement and holding everyone to the same standard of justice, regardless of title or status. But Democrats and some legal scholars say they carry a message. Especially alarming to some is the recent criminal charge leveled against a Democratic congresswoman from New Jersey.
'It's an attempt to intimidate potential critics,' said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California at Berkeley Law School.
Chemerinsky said he can't think of a precedent for arresting a judge, charging a member of Congress and investigating the former head of the FBI, noting that prosecutions of public officials typically focus on corruption. 'This is arresting a congresswoman for interfering with federal law enforcement,' he said. 'I can't think of an instance where we've seen something like that.'
Others, such as Eugene Volokh, an emeritus First Amendment professor at UCLA, said he believes there are 'plausible arguments' that the judge and congresswoman may have broken the law.
Trump, who was indicted in two federal cases after his first term ended, promised as a candidate last year to remedy what he portrayed as a criminal justice system weaponized against him when Joe Biden was president. (Biden said he did not involve himself in the cases.) Trump defended his administration's actions on Tuesday. A White House spokesman, Harrison Fields, said that unlike Democrats, the administration is focused on investigating crimes regardless of who commits them.
The clashes reflect a politically charged moment, with many Democrats shut out of power in Washington and eager to challenge the Trump administration in vocal and visible ways. Trump and his supporters often adopt a tough posture, relishing the arrests in social media posts and cable TV appearances.
On Tuesday, prosecutors charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-New Jersey) with assaulting two federal agents outside an immigration center in Newark during a scuffle this month. Trump accused McIver of being 'out of control' and said 'the days of that crap are over.'
'It's super unfortunate that we have come to this point in America that this is what we see happening to leaders in America who are trying to do their jobs,' McIver said Tuesday on CNN. 'We've seen this administration come after and attack leaders for trying to do their jobs. It's political intimidation, and I will not be intimidated.'
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka (D) was arrested at the same event and was initially charged with trespassing. On Monday, Alina Habba, the interim U.S. attorney for New Jersey, said she would seek to dismiss the charges against Baraka, who is running in the Democratic primary for governor. The judge in that case has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday afternoon.
On May 9, McIver visited Delaney Hall detention center in Newark with two other House Democrats for a congressional oversight tour of the facility. Baraka was arrested for trespassing amid a chaotic scene involving him, masked law enforcement officials and the three House members.
Video released by the Department of Homeland Security shows McIver rushing after the agents as they attempted to arrest Baraka and shouting to protesters outside to 'surround the mayor.'
At one point in the video, McIver's elbows appear to make contact with a masked officer amid the crush of the crowd. McIver went on an hour-long tour of the facility with the other House members afterward.
Habba, in her statement Monday, said her office gave McIver 'every opportunity' to resolve the matter without bringing criminal charges but that McIver refused. Habba did not elaborate on what those opportunities entailed, and her office declined to comment further on McIver's case.
McIver told CNN that Habba had asked her to admit to doing something she didn't do and that she refused to do so.
Habba and other Justice Department officials cast the case as an effort to stand up for federal agents trying to do their jobs. 'This administration will always protect those who work tirelessly to keep America safe,' Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a social media post Monday night. Habba, in announcing the charges against McIver, maintained that 'no one is above the law — politicians or otherwise.'
There could be more fallout from the incident. Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey) told reporters Tuesday there was a 'possibility' she and Rep. Robert Menendez Jr. (D-New Jersey) could face charges because of the incident.
Coleman said attorneys from the members of Congress would meet soon with prosecutors. 'So we don't know what she has intended,' she said. 'But we're ready for whatever it might be.'
Republicans said Democrats need to follow the law.
'Members are free to do what they want, but they run consequences when they do,' said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma). 'They don't have any special legal protection, nor should they.'
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) suggested voting to expel McIver from the House, while others have pushed for voting to formally censure her. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has not indicated whether he would consider taking action against her.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) told Democrats during their weekly caucus meeting on Tuesday that they would make sure that the 'so-called U.S. attorney' never gets confirmed by the Senate. Habba, a former personal lawyer for Trump, has not been formally nominated.
U.S. attorney candidates have typically been subject to the 'blue slip' tradition in the Senate, which means their nominations are effectively killed if either of the two senators representing their home state do not approve of them. New Jersey's senators — Cory Booker and Andy Kim — are both Democrats who seem unlikely to approve her.
'She's an incredibly dangerous, politicized person in that role,' Kim said on Tuesday.
This year's race for governor in New Jersey is seen as a high-profile gauge of voter sentiment about Trump. Like other Democrats in the primary, Baraka is pitching himself as someone who can push back forcefully on the administration as well as tackle local issues.
'This is really dangerous,' said Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-New Jersey), who is running for governor and previously served as a federal prosecutor in the office that Habba now oversees. 'McIver is a member of Congress. She was performing oversight duty. For Habba to politically charge her and … engage in a political type of assault on a member of Congress is really a dangerous path.'
The charges against McIver were filed less than a month after federal officials arrested Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan at the courthouse where she presides. Hours later, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo online of the judge being led away in handcuffs below the phrase, 'No one is above the law.'
Dugan has been indicted on charges of obstructing an official proceeding and concealing a person from arrest. She is accused of directing an immigrant who appeared before her to exit her courtroom through a side door instead of directly into a hallway where agents were waiting to arrest him. The agents caught up to him outside the courthouse.
Dugan has asked the court to throw out the charges, arguing that federal prosecutors have no power to charge her for how she conducts business in her courtroom.
Last week, the administration accused Comey, a Trump adversary, of threatening the president by posting a photo online of shells on a beach spelling out the phrase '86 47.' Trump is the 47th president, and '86' means to ban or remove someone and can be used as slang for killing a person.
The Secret Service launched an investigation and on Friday interviewed Comey, who had already taken down his social media post. Comey has said he meant to spread only a political message.
Volokh, the emeritus professor at UCLA, said he was skeptical of the need to investigate Comey. But he saw the Dugan and McIver cases differently.
'So much depends on the facts, but as a general matter, I think that these prosecutions, if the facts are as the government alleges, may very well be quite legitimate,' he said.
Aziz Huq, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said investigators, prosecutors and investigators typically exercise restraint when reviewing cases involving free speech because they do not want to trample on anyone's rights. That's not so with recent decisions, he said.
'Rather than seeing caution in the use of these tools, we're seeing the opposite, which is the aggressive and arguably actually reckless use of these tools against individuals who are seen as being adverse to this administration,' he said.
Hannah Knowles and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.