Rep. LaMonica McIver acted as a human shield to thwart the May 9 arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka outside an immigration detention center in Newark, federal authorities say in new court documents.

An eight-page criminal complaint filed in federal court in New Jersey Monday formally charges McIver (D-10) with two felony counts of assaulting officers during Baraka’s arrest. The complaint includes multiple stills captured by body cameras that the Department of Justice says show her striking, grabbing, and pushing the officers.

The charges against McIver have led to complaints from her fellow Democrats that the Trump administration is weaponizing the justice system to target his political foes. President Donald Trump claimed McIver was “out of control” while speaking to reporters in Washington, D.C., Tuesday.

“The days of woke are over. That woman, I have no idea who she is. That woman was out of control. She was shoving federal agents. She was out of control,” Trump said. “The days of that crap are over in this country. We’re going to have law and order.”

McIver has called the charges “purely political,” and said she was at the detention center that day as part of her congressional oversight duties.

“I’m not going to roll over and stop doing my job because they, you know, don’t want me to, or they want to neglect the fact that we needed to be in there to see what was going on in that detention center,” McIver said in an interview on CNN Tuesday.

Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba announced the charges against McIver on Monday, the same day she said she would drop a trespassing charge her office had filed against Baraka.

The charges stem from a visit McIver made to Delaney Hall, a newly opened migrant jail in Newark that Baraka has said is operating illegally without proper city permits. McIver, along with Democratic Reps. Rob Menendez and Bonnie Watson Coleman, said they wanted to inspect the facility. Baraka was also present.

According to statements made in the criminal complaint by Robert Tansey, a special agent at the Department of Homeland Security’s investigations agency in Newark, the mayor initially entered the property because guards thought he was a member of Congress. An agent approached the mayor and ordered him to leave the facility’s secure area, warning him he would be arrested if he did not do so, the complaint says.

Video shows Baraka exiting the property to join protestors on the other side of the gate separating the street from the detention center. Federal agents then moved to arrest him, and, according to the complaint, McIver started to shout, “Hell no! Hell no! Hell no!”

McIver, Watson Coleman, and other protestors circled the mayor, and during the scuffle that ensued, McIver pushed past a federal agent and pushing another on his shoulder, according to video of the episode.

McIver is represented by one of Habba’s predecessors, Paul Fishman.

“The decision to charge Congresswoman McIver is spectacularly inappropriate. She went to Delaney Hall to do her job. As a member of Congress, she has the right and responsibility to see how ICE is treating detainees. Rather than facilitating that inspection, ICE agents chose to escalate what should have been a peaceful situation into chaos. This prosecution is an attempt to shift the blame for ICE’s behavior to Congresswoman McIver. In the courtroom, facts — not headlines — will matter,” Fishman said in a statement.

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The wife of former Sen. Bob Menendez was convicted Monday of taking bribes and obstructing justice as part of the wide-ranging, international bribery scheme that landed her husband an 11-year prison sentence.

A Manhattan jury found that Nadine Arslanian Menendez, 58, accepted bribes like gold bars, cash, and a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for power and political influence, then tried to hide her actions from federal investigators. Bob Menendez was convicted after a separate trial last year.

Outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan, Nadine Menendez’s attorney Barry Coburn said they respect the judge and the jury, but said it’s a “very rough day for us.” Coburn said it’s “quite possible” they request a delay in sentencing, and declined to comment on whether she’s seeking a pardon.

“I have no doubt in my mind that the jury did what they thought was right, and I don’t think there’s any point to my standing here and debating any of that, so I decline to do that,” he said. “But the case is not over. There will be other days. ”

The jury deliberated for about seven hours over two days before finding Menendez guilty of all 15 counts, including bribery, obstruction of justice, extortion, and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Some of those charges carry a maximum sentence of 20 years.

She is scheduled to be sentenced June 12. That’s six days after Bob Menendez is expected to report to prison for his 11-year sentence.

Bob Menendez was sentenced in January after he was found guilty of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for political favors for foreign governments and meddling in two criminal investigations.

Nadine Menendez, wearing a pink mask and a black shawl, did not speak to a crowd of reporters outside the courthouse Monday. Her attorney did not comment on why Bob Menendez didn’t attend his wife’s trial.

The two started dating in 2018 and married in 2020. Two years later, their Englewood Cliffs home was raided by FBI agents who uncovered hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash and gold bars.

Nadine Menendez was first indicted in September 2023 alongside her husband and three businessmen accused of bribing them, Fred Daibes, Wael Hana, and Jose Uribe. She was diagnosed with breast cancer, requiring treatment that delayed her trial for months.

Hana and Daibes were convicted alongside the former senator in July, and are also set to go to prison. Uribe pleaded guilty to bribing the Menendezes so Bob Menendez would kill a criminal prosecution targeting Uribe. Uribe, who testified in both trials, has not been sentenced yet.

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com.

More than 43,000 New Jerseyans cast a ballot for “uncommitted” in the Democratic presidential primary Tuesday in a protest vote targeted at the Biden administration’s pro-Israel policies.

President Joe Biden received more than 88% of the vote, but supporters of the uncommitted movement say that by winning 9%, they’ve shown the Biden administration how many New Jerseyans disapprove of his handling of the war in Gaza. Former Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer, a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s policy on the war, said the vote total sends an unequivocal message that Democrats are dissatisfied.

“We know that New Jersey is a state where very few people make a habit of voting in primaries because they usually are not contested, so the fact that a significant number of people did make that choice is powerful, and it was a good opportunity for people to express their perspective,” said Jaffer, a Democrat.

Uncommitted earned 43,758 votes, according to projected counts from the Associated Press. That’s a bit fewer than the 50,000 vote target organizers had before the election, said Isaac Jimenez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America. But his takeaway is that plenty of Democrats are “not in lockstep with the Democratic Party at all.”

“This is a national movement and I’d say 40,000 people voting, it’s no small feat,” said Jimenez. “It’s a very clear warning that they are failing to recognize … that many young voters, many Arab or Muslim voters, especially in swing states, are not along for the ride in November until there’s a cease-fire.”

The movement to vote uncommitted was spawned in Michigan by progressives who wanted to protest Biden for supporting continued military aid to Israel and his initial hesitancy to call for a cease-fire. So far, the campaign will send 36 delegates from nine states to the Democratic Party’s national convention, though Biden is expected to be named the party’s presidential nominee (he has 3,872 delegates).

The uncommitted option was on 18 of the 20 delegate districts in the state. In order to send representation to the convention, candidates must receive 15% of the party’s vote statewide or 15% in the district. New Jersey’s districts combine two legislative districts into one, and each district has between three and six delegates for a total of 146.

One of those delegates will be from New Jersey because uncommitted won more than 15% of the vote in a single delegate district, one that includes voting districts in Essex and Passaic counties. Nearly 20% of Democrats chose uncommitted in the delegate districts that include parts of Paterson, a city with a large Muslim and Arab population. Some Paterson voting districts saw uncommitted nab more than 60%.

Jimenez said delegates from different states are coordinating to continue to call for an anti-war agenda at the convention.

“I think there is definitely a lot of energy for Gaza across the state, and it’s just going to take time to organize so more people can hear about it,” Jimenez said.

Prospect Park Mayor Mohammed Khairullah challenged Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. in the 9th Congressional District, running a campaign largely focused on criticizing Pascrell for his support of Israel. He did not topple Pascrell — Khairullah won 23% to Pascrell’s 77% — but Khairullah suggested the 14-term congressman is losing support. The last time Pascrell faced a challenger in 2020, he won nearly 81% of the vote.

Khairullah noted that he announced his candidacy in March and the uncommitted movement landed on the ballot in April, giving both campaigns little time to reach everyone they wanted. But he believes they both sent a strong message, and in the five months between now and the November election, “that message is going to be magnified,” he said.

Khairullah said he vowed that in his concession call, he’d demand Pascrell to call for an immediate and sustained cease-fire instead of the conditional cease-fire Pascrell supports. Without a change in Pascrell’s stance, he said the Muslim and Arab community will not vote for him in November.

Khairullah said he wouldn’t be surprised if voters turn to Trump, despite the racist rhetoric he has spewed about Muslims.

“At this point, people are watching their loved ones being massacred. I think their response is out of pure emotional desire to take action against the president who is allowing it to happen,” he said.

Jaffer also echoed that, saying young people are “soul searching and questioning” whether the Democratic Party represents them.

“I feel like the Democratic Party really risks losing an entire generation of voters because of the way they’ve treated not only Gaza, but students on campuses, faculty members, the freedom of speech of young people,” she said. “I think it goes beyond just this particular moment issue or this particular moment.”

An earlier version of this story misidentified where Sadaf Jaffer lives.

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on Facebook and Twitter.