Trump’s DOJ Had Shocking Role in New Jersey Mayor’s Arrest
New court records indicate that the high-profile arrest of Newark, New Jersey, Mayor Ras Baraka at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in May was a top-down directive from the Trump administration.
President Trump’s Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche reportedly
ordered the arrest personally.
Baraka was arrested on May 9, as he and other New Jersey lawmakers, including Representative LaMonica McIver, attempted to conduct oversight at an ICE facility. Baraka and company received mixed messages from the agents there: The mayor was reportedly invited onto the property, left when he was requested to do so, but was nonetheless arrested, in a chaotic event, for trespassing.
McIver is fighting assault charges related to the incident, which she claims are politically motivated. The Newark mayor’s case, on the other hand, was dismissed in May.
But a question remained: Had the order for Baraka’s arrest come down from on high? The answer—apparently, yes—came in a filing by McIver’s defense team, citing “video evidence” produced by the government in discovery, which was first reported by Politico Tuesday.
At 2:37 p.m. on the day of the incident, a Homeland Security Investigations special agent at the facility reportedly took a phone call, “then immediately announced that Mayor Baraka, and anyone who was not a Member of Congress, must leave or be arrested.” The agent told the mayor to leave, and he complied.
The lawmakers eventually came to believe they would, in fact, be permitted to conduct oversight. But minutes later, the HSI agent had another phone call, in which he told his interlocutor: “I am arresting the mayor.… Even though he stepped out, I am going to put him in cuffs.”
Turning to his fellow federal officers, the agent declared, “We are arresting the mayor right now, per the deputy attorney general of the United States. Anyone that gets in our way, I need you guys to give me a perimeter so I can cuff him.”
This revelation about Baraka’s arrest—which the federal judge who dismissed the case described as a “worrying misstep”—comes amid heightened concerns about the president weaponizing federal agents, including from ICE, against his political opponents.
