'Purely political': Feds claim congresswoman assaulted two officers during jail scuffle

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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