NEWARK — Leave it to Joe Cryan to highlight the absurdity of the federal case against Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ).
Cryan (D), a Union County state senator and one of McIver’s constituents, spoke at a rally Tuesday outside a federal courthouse in Newark as McIver’s attorneys were inside urging a judge to toss an indictment that accuses McIver of assaulting federal officers as they arrested Newark Mayor Ras Baraka in Newark on May 9.
Videos from the chaotic scene of Baraka’s arrest outside migrant hall Delaney Hall do indeed show McIver making contact with officers, pushing one on his shoulder and pushing another one aside with her arm as she walked past him. I’ve seen more jostling on a crowded boardwalk on the Fourth of July, when it barely raises an eyebrow. Cryan called her actions a “supposed assault.”
“As a kid who played a lot of basketball in those schools, if I called a foul in a game of three-on-three for that, I would get laughed at and told to man up when the ball got thrown back in my face,” he said.
The flimsy nature of the charges against McIver is compounded by the timeline of the events in question. After McIver’s alleged assault of the two officers, Department of Homeland Security agents led McIver and two of her House colleagues into Delaney Hall for a tour, and escorted them all off the property an hour later. Prosecutors didn’t announce they were charging McIver until 10 days later.
Did the officers she’s accused of assaulting even know they were assaulted that day? Or is it that prosecutors needed to charge McIver to save face after their case against Baraka crumbled in mere days? I’m certain it’s the latter.
The Trump administration’s prosecution of McIver has brought national attention, probably by design. It’s harder for the opposition party to be effective when they’re busy putting out small fires all across the nation. Some of McIver’s liberal colleagues in the House visited Newark Tuesday to rally McIver’s supporters and heap scorn on President Donald Trump for his administration’s push to lock McIver up.
“This isn’t about the law. This is about power, punishment, and pure politics,” said Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX).
“They want to see if they can get away with this. They want to test whether they can silence a sitting member of Congress who dares to ask questions. Well, the answer is hell no.”
I’m not so sure. U.S. District Judge Jamel Semper, who is overseeing McIver’s case, made no decision Tuesday on her multiple requests to have the charges thrown out, but indicated this thing may be headed to trial.
“Whether this is criminal conduct is for a jury. I’m not wading into those waters,” Semper said.
If this thing does go before a jury, it could happen as early as Nov. 10. Just what New Jersey needs after a nasty gubernatorial election — an assault trial that serves as a proxy for Trump’s immigration policy and Democrats’ response to it, with the eyes of a nation upon us. Can’t wait.
- Editor Terrence T. McDonald is a native New Jerseyan who has worked for newspapers in the Garden State for 20 years. He has covered everything from Trenton politics to the smallest of municipal squabbles, exposing public corruption and general malfeasance at every level of government. Terrence won 23 New Jersey Press Association awards and two Tim O’Brien Awards for Investigative Journalism using the Open Public Records Act from the New Jersey chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. One politician forced to resign in disgrace because of Terrence’s reporting called him a "political poison pen journalist.” You can reach him at tmcdonald@newjerseymonitor.com.
