In a story that as far as I can tell represents a petulant fascist temper tantrum as a result of fallout over the clown-show authoritarian arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, noted sycophant Trump minion Alina Habba has announced criminal charges against US Congresswoman (D-NJ) LaMonica McIver. The regime is accusing the Congresswoman of assaulting two ICE agents during the lawful oversight visit she conducted on a sketchy, privately-run, recently reopened migrant detention facility called Delaney Hall; the very same visit that resulted in Trump's Gestapo arresting Baraka as part of the regime's attempts to intimidate opposition to their unlawful mass deportation campaign.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/lamonica-mciver-charges

'Should Send a Chill Down the Spine of Every American': Trump DOJ Charges New Jersey Democrat

"In a statement, Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba announced the charges against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), claiming the lawmaker "assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement" at GEO Group's Delaney Hall. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) awarded GEO Group a billion-dollar contract earlier this year to detain migrants there, even as the facility faced legal challenges and accusations of abuse.

McIver rejected the charges against her as "purely political," saying that "they mischaracterize and distort my actions" in an attempt to "criminalize and deter legislative oversight."

"We were fulfilling our lawful oversight responsibilities, as members of Congress have done many times before, and our visit should have been peaceful and short," said McIver. "Instead, ICE agents created an unnecessary and unsafe confrontation when they chose to arrest Mayor [Ras] Baraka."

Habba said Monday that her office has agreed to drop the trespassing charge against Baraka, who welcomed the decision while expressing solidarity with McIver."

Okay so I don't know if you remember the post I made about Baraka's arrest, but there are literally a bunch of links to video footage of the confrontation Habba is talking about and needless to say it doesn't show the Congresswoman assaulting anyone, let alone "body-slamming" anyone as at least one DHS official previously claimed. Even the government's own out of context video clip just shows some shoving in a crowd of people trying to protect the Mayor of Newark. In other words the Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey is straight up lying about something we can all watch on video. This would of course be more shocking if the world hadn't gotten to know Habba during her time as a defense attorney for Downmarket Mussolini, in which is she routinely spat out easily disprovable lies in court. As an activist I can say from personal experience that this feels an awful lot like the standard bullshit charge cops who just roughed up some protesters press to keep the heat off long enough for the story to go away, and then quietly drop later. You can see that same pattern at work in the "trespass" charges laid against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, which were ultimately dropped because the regime knows they don't have a leg to stand on when they're under oath.

With all that established however, I think it's important to understand that even if they ultimately drop the charges against McIver, as they did with Baraka, this is still an example of a fascist regime weaponizing the enforcement arm of the state, to target and intimidate their political opposition. Pam Bondi might not love the Justice Department's chances in a court of law, but a message is still being sent to opposition party politicians that if they try to interfere with the unlawful, openly fascist "whitening" of America, security forces will be deployed to stop them. This when combined with the regime's threatening rhetoric, and its day to day attempts to erode the oversight of the judiciary to do blatantly unconstitutional authoritarian bullshit, effectively creates an unstable political environment where opposition to the regime's program, even legal opposition, carries an impossible to properly calculate degree of personal risk to the critic. Whatever your opinion of the Democratic Party happens to be, I think we can all admit that putting their own asses on the line to protect dissidents and critics hasn't exactly been their forte since at least October 7th, 2023; although obviously Baraka, McIver, and Robert Menendez deserve full marks for doing so now.

Finally; I can't prove it, but for a fun thought experiment google up some pictures of Baraka, McIver, and Menendez and tell me if you can think of any obvious reasons a white nationalist government might charge only the two people they did. Yeah, looked about white to me too.

#Fascism #Trump #PoliceState #LaMonicaMcIver #ICE #DoJ #PamBondi #AlinaHabba #DHS #RasBaraka #DelaneyHall #RobertMenendez #Intimidation #DemocraticParty #USCongress #Newark #NewJersey #USPol #MassDeportation #Racism #WhiteNationalism

Senator #ChuckSchumer, #Democrat of #NewYork & the #Senate majority leader, promptly called on Senator #RobertMenendez to resign. ”“In light of this #guilty verdict, Senator #Menendez must now do what is right for his constituents, the Senate, & our country, & resign,” he said in a statement.

#BobMenendez #law #criminal

The #verdict makes #RobertMenendez, a #Democrat, only the 7th sitting US #senator to be convicted of a federal #crime.

Prosecutors accused #Menendez & his wife, #NadineMenendez, of orchestrating a #bribery scheme while he was the Democratic leader of the #Senate Foreign Relations Cmte. The govt contended that the senator acted as an #agent of #Egypt & interceded to quash #criminal prosecutions in #NewJersey in exchange for the payoffs & then sought to cover it up.

#law

Senator #RobertMenendez of #NewJersey was #convicted on all counts in a sweeping scheme to sell his office to foreign powers & crooked businessmen in exchange for hundreds of thousands in cash, a luxury car & gold bars.

A jury #convicted him on charges including honest services #WireFraud, #bribery & #extortion — 16 counts in all.

#BobMenendez #law
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/16/nyregion/bob-menendez-verdict/the-jury-will-present-its-verdict-soon-heres-the-latest?smid=url-share

The jury finds Senator #RobertMenendez #guilty on all counts.

Wael Hana & Fred Daibes, businessmen & Menendez’s co-defendants, have also been found guilty on all the counts against them.

#BobMenendez #law #criminal

Count 14 – #Extortion – #RobertMenendez is found GUILTY

Count 15 – #Conspiracy For a Public Official to Act as a Foreign Agent – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 16 – Public Official Acting as a #ForeignAgent – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 17 – Conspiracy to Commit Obstruction of Justice – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 18 – #Obstruction of Justice – Menendez is found GUILTY

#BobMenendez #law #criminal

Count 7 – Honest Services Wire Fraud – #RobertMenendez is found #GUILTY

Count 8 – Extortion – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 9 – Honest Services Wire Fraud – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 10 – Extortion – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 11 – Bribery – Menendez is found GUILTY

Count 13 – Honest Services Wire Fraud – Menendez is found GUILTY

#BobMenendez #law #criminal