A decision by interim New Jersey U.S. Attorney Alina Habba to announce her decision to charge Rep. LaMonica Mclver (D-N.J.) with felony assault on X may have put the case on the fast-track to nowhere according to two MSNBC legal analysts.
Habba was handed the position by Donald Trump after he appointed his first choice, John Giordano, to be ambassador to Namibia, after previously having served as his lead defense attorney when he was sued by writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation which ultimately led to her client being slapped with an $83.3 million judgment.
When announcing, she has "charged Congresswoman McIver with violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 111(a)(1) for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement," Habba attached a statement claiming, "I have persistently made efforts to address these issues without bringing criminal charges and have given Representative McIver every opportunity to come to a resolution, but she has unfortunately declined."
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According to MSNBC analysts Lisa Rubin and Kristy Greenberg, everything about her presentation of the case is problematic.
With Rubin pointing there has yet to be a grand jury indictment, Greenberg added, "They would need to show there is physical contact, but that there was an intentional physical assault. And here, if you even looked back at that video, it's not clear that there's any intention behind the physical contact –– it looked like at least there was a lot of jostling."
"As you said, agents were putting hands on her and she was kind of pushing them away," she told host Ana Cabrera.
Rubin jumped in to say Habba has already put her case on shaky ground.
"The thing here, Ana, that's so unusual, is that I can't recall another instance in which you see a U.S. attorney going out publicly as charges are filed and before they're even in the defendant's own hands, which is something we know from her legal team and saying, we tried to negotiate a solution here and that wasn't forthcoming," Rubin explained.
"You have an obligation as a U.S. attorney not to engage in conduct in terms of your public statements that could prejudice a jury pool against a defendant by saying that she offered her an opportunity to come to a resolution," she elaborated. "That could be prejudicial contact, conduct, I'm sorry, in and of itself: really unfortunate and also highly unusual, as Kristy knows."
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