On Tuesday, a small immigration reporting outlet, Migrant Insider, asked Hakeem Jeffries whether the masked ICE officials who had accosted LaMonica McIver and a Jerry Nadler staffer had been identified. Jeffries replied that every single one of them — no matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes — would be identified, noting that the US was not the Soviet Union. Jeffries explained that “our first priorities” are making sure that the person on the front line is able to move on, but he also claimed that efforts to deal with the broader policy implications “are underway.”

Of the biggest outlets that picked up the comment, just MeidasTouch, which said “this is exactly kind of the fight that we need to be seeing from our representatives,” served to magnify Jeffries’ comment; their Instagram post got over 43,000 likes. Most of the others — Breitbart, CPAC, Sean Hannity, the Washington Examiner — tried to pitch this as a threat to ICE. Jeffries said something fiery, but while the right wing used it to claim Democrats were attacking cops, left wing pundits either didn’t notice or ignored it.

One probable reason left wing pundits didn’t mention Jeffries’ comment on Tuesday is they were still seething over a comment he made two days earlier — a comment they didn’t have to work to find. Jeffries told Dana Bash that Democrats would respond to Trump’s attacks on members of Congress — Bash mentioned both the charges against LaMonica McIver and the handcuffing of a Jerry Nadler staffer — but “we will make that decision in a time, place, and manner of our choosing.”

The comment from Jeffries has been used all week as an example of the feckless Dems, of their fecklessness on immigration issues, especially.

But Jeffries was right that Democrats have been responding to these issues, to the extent they can in the minority. Since Jeffries made that comment, at least the following has happened:

• On Monday, Gwen Moore and Mark Pocan did an unannounced visit to a Wisconsin detention center of the sort that turned into the McIver altercation in New Jersey; nothing happened and so it got little notice
• On Tuesday, Jerry Nadler and Jamie Raskin sent a sternly-worded letter to Jim Jordan demanding 1) He condemn the abuse of separation of powers presented by the ICE detention and 2) he call Kristi Noem for a hearing before the House Judiciary to answer for her “agency’s irresponsible and dangerous actions”
• On Tuesday (as noted) Jeffries promised to identify the ICE agents involved in such heavy-handed tactics
• On Tuesday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka sued Alina Habba for malicious prosecution and defamation
• Jerry Nadler released a second video of the altercation with ICE agents (who were actually unmasked); it shows that one ICE agent pushed the Nadler staffer before handcuffing her, debunking DHS claims
• As we speak, Jimmy Gomez is reporting on an atrocious detention situation in Los Angeles (he has demanded to go in)

And all that’s before other victories on detention, such as the release of Carol Hui and the return of an improperly deported man or the order to release details of the Administration’s deal with Nayib Bukele, legal cases that have attracted lefty attention, with or without involvement of members of Congress.

A number of these things — the detention center visit and the sternly-worded letter — are the kind of routine oversight that rarely attracts attention (though I’ve repeatedly been told that members of Congress are not making such detention center visits, so it’s important to mention that they are). I’ve noted that Jeffries’ promise to identify the ICE officers was largely ignored by much of the left — but not the right.

The Baraka lawsuit got a great deal of mainstream attention, but very little attention from pundits. Until this Baraka appearance on Democracy Now today, I’ve seen little focus on its significance.

That’s probably true, in part, because there’s a decent likelihood it gets dismissed based on prosecutorial immunity grounds; there are other lawsuits that are, legally, far more urgent and significant for legal commentators to cover.

But if it is not dismissed then it may turn into a political firestorm. Baraka cited a number of things that may get him beyond the normally very high bar of prosecutorial immunity: he cited Alina Habba’s comments before being confirmed as US Attorney, promising to abuse her authority, he cited Habba’s use of her private Twitter account to make knowingly false claims about his arrest, the false claims both Habba and DHS made about the circumstances of the arrest, and Magistrate Judge André Espinosa’s rebuke of DOJ for its conduct in the case gets past an attempt to dismiss it. If the lawsuit survives, it could be a very powerful political tool to fight back against Trump’s politicization of law enforcement.

But even as a messaging document, the lawsuit is important. It makes clear that Special Agent in Charge Ricky Patel — whom Baraka alleges instructed other agents to “take him down” while they were pushing and shoving the group —  had no basis to arrest Baraka and also disputes claims made in the LaMonica McIver arrest affidavit. Details from the lawsuit — such as that Habba commented publicly even before Baraka was transported from Delaney Hall, or that they fingerprinted Baraka twice, once upon his arrest and once on his initial appearance — make it clear what a political hit job this was. If, as polls show is likely, Baraka doesn’t win New Jersey’s gubernatorial primary, he’ll be able to add the affect of the arrest on his electoral chances to the injury Habba caused to him. Those are all enough to make a stink out of.

All the more so given the obvious comparison with Eric Adams. Pam Bondi’s DOJ dismissed a case against Adams so it would not affect his primary chances, also citing his need to carry out his mayoral duties. But they arrested Baraka while he was carrying out his mayoral duties, trying to ensure the safety of a facility in his city, and did so weeks before a primary. Those are fundamentally inconsistent actions.

If this survives an initial motion to dismiss, then Baraka will have the ability to get discovery (including a comparison of his case with Adams’) and demand depositions.

And all of that makes a criminal case against Congresswoman McIver (which has yet to be indicted by a grand jury) far less viable. Unless and until DOJ gets the Baraka lawsuit dismissed, they will have competing threads of discovery out there, even further weakening an already weak case against McIver.

That should have made it a central messaging vehicle. The same is true of Jerry Nadler’s release of a video that shows DHS lied about the circumstances of the handcuffing of his staffer. With attention, it could create a firestorm by itself. I’ve seen no coverage from the pundit class. No pundit class, no firestorm.

It’s not so much the Democrats are doing nothing. It’s that the people who are best situated to make a stink about what has happened — to publicize Baraka’s competing claims about what happened at Delaney Hall, to generate outrage over how the Nadler video debunks DHS, and yes, even to use that sternly-worded letter to shame Jim Jordan for abdicating the independence of Article I power — are instead spending entire days claiming that nothing is happening except a comment they watched out of context.