Mayor Ras Baraka Reaffirms Malicious Prosecution Claim
Some weeks ago, DOJ attempted to bigfoot Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s malicious prosecution claim, arguing that it had to be dismissed right away.
Today, his attorney, Yael Bromberg, (who recently took over the suit) responded, accusing Ricky Patel of lying on his arrest complaint.
On May 9, 2025, the Mayor, accompanied by his security detail, including Newark Police Department officers, was undisputedly permitted entry by a GEO Group guard, who allowed passage through the secured gate surrounding the outer perimeter of Delaney Hall. Forty minutes later, Defendant Ricky J. Patel arrived on the scene with approximately 20 heavily armored agents, joining various security guards already present there. Patel suddenly threatened the Mayor with arrest should he not depart from property which Patel is neither an owner nor a representative of. 4 Although the congressional representatives objected to his ejection, the Mayor advised Patel that he would leave, and he immediately did so peacefully. The charging document, signed by Defendant Patel, includes false statements that the Mayor “unlawfully entered and remained” on the property, and key omissions of fact that Patel already knew: that the Mayor was allowed onto the property by GEO, who opened the gate for his entry and allowed him to stay there for forty minutes, and that he exited the property willfully. Defendant Habba immediately propagated a false narrative, before the Mayor was even transported from Delaney, and then on national television, claiming that he “storm[ed]” Delaney Hall “joined by a mob of people,” and that he “broke into a detention facility.” (Am. Compl. ¶ 39, ¶¶ 34-41).5
[snip]
Nor does this litigation concern a new Bivens context, as Defendants argue. “[F]ollowing [the United States Supreme] Court’s precedents, the Districts Courts and Courts of Appeals have decided numerous cases involving Fourth Amendment claims under §1983 for malicious prosecution.” Thompson v. Clark, 596 U.S. 36, 42 (2022) (string citation omitted). “[N]early every other Circuit has held that malicious prosecution is actionable under the Fourth Amendment to the extent that the defendant’s actions cause the plaintiff to be ‘seized’ without probable cause.” Id. (reference omitted). Claims of malicious prosecution must show that the proceedings were initiated “without probable cause” and that the defendants “acted maliciously for a purpose other than bringing the plaintiff to justice.” Zimmerman v. Corbett, 873 F.3d 414 (3d Cir. 2017). Those circumstances are immediately present here.
Bromberg plans to amend the complaint. Given the video showing Ricky Patel operating on instructions from Todd Blanche (which Bromberg cites), I would be unsurprised if he added Blanche to the suit.
Something tells me Blanche is going to need a bigger closet, for all the suits he’s getting.
And a higher credit card limit for all the dry cleaning.
Just wanted to say thank you for all the hard work you do documenting the actions of this corrupt Administration. I look forward (also dread) each morning checking this page for your latest work. I know you put a lot of time and effort into it and it can be soul crushing. Knowledge is power, thanks for enlightening us.
“Only the best people.”
Trump promised that if elected, he’d “surround myself only with the best and most serious people”. He added: “We want top-of-the-line professionals.”
How can we limit his pardon power to establish the rule of law (as we knew it)? What tools still remain?
You read here but don’t know that the president’s pardon power is the only plenary power in the constitution? The only way to limit it is to amend the the document that creates it. In this political environment, attempting to do that would be political suicide.
Well, I don’t know about “suicide”, but certainly an exercise in futility, both currently and into any likely near-future.
Still, you would think with Trump’s excesses, there ought to be enough members of the voting public appalled enough to make it an election issue. (Ought to be, but… ?)
What a future reformist president could do, though, is announce that he is planning to pardon *everyone* currently in the slammer in tranches of (say) 10-randomly-chosen inmates per week until Congress limits the pardon power. Reductio ad absurdum is the reformists’ friend.
Same with John Roberts and his little gang of soft-putchists. A phone call from the almighty king they have created to quietly suggest they all promptly find something better to do with their lives, or a masked snatch squad could be coming their way…
“there ought to be enough members of the voting public appalled enough to make it an election issue.”
Yet in NJ governor race, Democrat nominee Sherrill leads an asshole Republican by single digits.
He’s also threatening to sue Sherrill because she’s accusing him of “he’s responsible for publicizing the propaganda from opioid companies when he was saying opioids were safe and the publishing company was saying they were safe and people were dying,” she said.
https://newjerseymonitor.com/2025/10/09/nj-governors-race-debate-opioids/
There are a lot of moving parts between Article II Section 2 of the Constitution, and pardons actually being executed. All of which are governed by law, right?
Trump is ignoring the legal pardon process and is handing out pardons, unreviewed and unaccountable, like candy. And so the pardon process is being circumvented, why? Because he can?
One moving part between Article II Section 2 of the Constitution, and pardons actually being executed is “whether Trump can be arsed to actually sign a pardon”.
Even the unobservant might notice it was more than four years between January 6, 2021 and the 1500 accomplices being pardoned or otherwise let off the hook in January, 2025. He could have pardoned them all on January 7, 2021, but he didn’t, and he let them twist in the wind for a while. If he had not been reelected in 2024, they’d still be twisting.
My theory is that pardoning people is no fun for him unless people beg for it, but I have never observed him in real life, and I have no intention of getting that close to him now.
The pardon power is laid out in Article II Section 2 of the Constitution. Its limited to federal convictions, and only excludes impeachment as a pardonable offence. Technically, changing the scope of pardon power requires a Constitutional amendment, a heavy lift at best. A Republican approach would be to make up some “interpretation” and get the Supreme Court to bless it, maybe narrow (or expand) the meaning of “offences against the United States”, not a lot to work with there.
Technically?
Perhaps to try and get more state charges?
I don’t know if the recent Supreme Court ruling that the president is above the law also applies to charges from states.
Meanwhile, MSNBC has reported that Lindsey Halligan has removed another career prosecutor in EDVA. Apparently this person is a Fed Soc member and had been accused of participating in the Jan6 insurrection, but she would not have anything to do with the Comey prosecution. MSNBC (Ken Dilanian) said she was reassigned rather than fired. Dilanian also said that the Bolton indictment/prosecution is expected shortly and that at least there seems to be more substance to that case since a judge signed search warrants and federal prosecutors are ok with moving forward on it.
That would be Maggie Cleary, who became the interim US Atty in the eastern district of VA for about 2-3 days after Siebert resigned. Lindsay Halligan was quickly shuttled into the job to get the indictment on Comey, and Cleary was “demoted” to AUSA there…until today. Now she’s outta there – reassigned to legal Siberia. Insubordination will not be tolerated!
The Bolton case is in a different district – Maryland, not Virginia. The US Atty there is Kelly Hayes, confirmed in June 2025, so not interim.
https://www.justice.gov/usao/us-attorneys-listing