Steve Benen is a producer for 'The Rachel Maddow Show,' the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of 'Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past.'
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has arrested a sitting judge and a sitting mayor, leaving many to wonder whether a member of Congress might soon join the list. Wonder no more. The acting U.S.
attorney for the District of New Jersey, Alina Habba, announced on Monday that her office was charging Rep. LaMonica McIver, D-N.J., with 'assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement.' The basic elements of the story are straightforward. Earlier this month, a group of Democratic officials, including three members of Congress, visited Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in New Jersey. The point, according to the lawmakers, was to conduct oversight, which is a core congressional responsibility. Things did not go well, however, at Delaney Hall. There was a chaotic scene involving protesters, lawmakers and Trump administration agents, culminating in Ras Baraka, the Democratic mayor of New Jersey's Newark, getting arrested and being charged with trespassing. While Habba, a former Trump lawyer, claimed the mayor “ignored multiple warnings” to “remove himself from the ICE detention center,” Baraka soon after told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki, “After they finally told us to leave, and I told them I was leaving, they came outside the gate and arrested me. So it looked like it was targeted.” Just as notable, however, was the involvement of three House Democratic lawmakers from New Jersey — Bonnie Watson Coleman, Rob Menendez and McIver — who said in a statement that they were met with “contempt, disrespect, and aggression from ICE” while they were conducting oversight. A day later, however, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security accused the members of Congress of having assaulted ICE officers and suggested criminal charges were a distinct possibility. Evidently, this was not meaningless posturing. On Capitol Hill, congressional Republicans, siding with ICE over their colleagues, have been exploring a variety of possible punishments for the Democratic trio, ranging from censure to the loss of committee assignments. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem went further during Capitol Hill testimony last week, telling lawmakers the Democratic members in question “don’t deserve to be in the House.” It’s against this backdrop that the Trump administration has now charged McIver. In the press release announcing the charges, Habba asserted, 'No one is above the law — politicians or otherwise.' In a statement posted to X on Monday night, Rep. McIver said, 'The charges against me are purely political — they mischaracterize and distort my actions and are meant to criminalize and deter legislative oversight.' To be sure, there is plenty of modern precedent for sitting members of Congress’ getting charged with crimes, but this tends to happen when lawmakers are accused of corruption or engage in civil disobedience. The McIver case is qualitatively different.
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