DOJ Withheld Proof They Knew Their Assault of LaMonica McIver Was “Bad” before They Charged Her
Today was a big day in New Jersey. It was the day that both Congresswoman LaMonica McIver and DOJ had to submit supplemental fillings in McIver’s case about whether the second of three charges against her fit entirely within her duties of oversight as a Congressperson.
It was also the day after Alina Habba finally gave up play-acting as US Attorney in the wake of the Third Circuit ruling that such play-acting was unlawful, something that sane-washing journalists inaccurately called a resignation.
Indeed, the most interesting thing about the government’s response was that it was signed by the guy, Phillip Lamparello, Pam Bondi installed to oversee criminal matters as part of her contemptuous refusal to permit a US Attorney be appointed in a legal manner (which may be why Todd Blanche remains on these filings, because this is still bullshit).
Otherwise, that motion complained that, “the Defendant had not included among her exhibits the video footage that most clearly depicted the events described in Count Two.” It argued that physical contact initiated by ICE was just a continuation of what happened outside the gate.
The Defendant’s actions as alleged in Count Two were simply the continuation of her actions in Count One, albeit with a different individual being subject to her ongoing efforts to interfere with the Mayor’s arrest.
And it argued that when ICE assaults members of Congress it still must be treated as an assault on ICE unprotected by Speech and Debate.
The Government respectfully asserts that any assault upon a federal officer should qualify as an act that is “clearly non-legislative” given that such an act is clearly an “illegitimate activity.” And it would be clearly non-legislative whether the arrest that triggered the assault took place outside the Security Gate or inside of Delaney Hall.
By contrast to the government’s terse 9-page response, McIver’s 19-page supplemental brief cites ten videos and two sealed Signal chats.
2. Exhibit X is a true and correct copy of a signal chat produced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of a folder titled USA-000353, including participants from DHS and HSI. This exhibit will be filed under seal pursuant to a protective order signed by the parties and entered by the Court. See ECF No. 38.
3. Exhibit Y is a true and correct copy of a signal chat produced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office as part of a folder titled USA-000334, including participants from HSI. This exhibit will be filed under seal pursuant to a protective order signed by the parties and entered by the Court. See ECF No. 38.
Most of McIver’s filing conducts a second-by-second analysis of the video, showing that when she got back inside the gate she immediately headed towards the facility and not to where Mayor Baraka was being arrested without probable cause.
But a footnote describes one of the things in those Signal chats (another appears to have been notice that McIver and her colleagues said they were there to conduct oversight).
It wasn’t until November 26 — almost two weeks after Judge Jamel Semper ruled on McIver’s immunity bid — that DOJ turned over texts copying this video, observing that it looked bad.
5 The Spotlight News video came to light during the course of supplemental briefing only because it was referenced in a May 9, 2025, text message that the government finally turned over on November 26, 2025. HSI special agents exchanged the video in that May 9 conversation, where the agents also acknowledged that the evidence in the video was “bad.” Ex. Y at 2-3. The prosecution team therefore clearly knew about the text messages (and thus the video) when disclosures were due in July.
McIver’s lawyer, Paul Fishman, says he will address this delayed discovery in a follow-up letter.
Inexplicable delays in the government’s discovery productions mean that the record continues to be developed.1
1 Congresswoman McIver will detail these shortcomings in a forthcoming letter to the Court.
But the implication of this is clear.
DOJ was never going to turn over these discussions — conducted on Signal — until Judge Semper ordered this supplemental briefing. They were sitting on evidence that shows that before DHS first started calling McIver’s actions an assault on May 10 (McIver had to ask to have these Tweets taken down, but the timeline is in her motion to do so), they had shared video noting that their own actions looked bad.
Over and over this year, DHS has assaulted opponents of ICE and then charged them for it. And these Signal texts sure seem to support that they knowingly did the same thing with Congresswoman McIver.
And then buried it in a discovery violation.
Update: At the status hearing pertaining to these filings, which was on November 17. McIver’s attorneys complained they were getting screen shots of Signal texts collected by Agents rather than texts with actual metadata from the posts.
Your Honor, I will just tee up that we have, you know, that there is certainly going to be an issue with respect to the government’s messages. We have received a partial production of the messages. I believe it is 54. And, you know, we are going to be, you know, we are preparing a letter to send to Your Honor. We have had some dialogue —
THE COURT: The text messages between the agents on the day in question?
MR. CORTES: That is correct, Your Honor. We have gotten 54 of them. They are a mish-mash of things of what appear to be Signal chats. Some of which seem like text messages. We have gotten a few emails.
But the broader issue I think, Your Honor, and just to preview it, obviously, I will put this in writing because I don’t — I want Your Honor to have the complete take, and, obviously, the government is going to have responses; but just as an overview, Judge, the messages that we have gotten, appear to be messages that the agents themselves searched for on their devices, applying search terms that the government tells us that they supplied to the agents, but they would not share with us the entirety of what those search terms were.
And then the agents took their devices and took photographs, screen shots of the messages that were responsive to the search terms that they applied. And then provided that to the government. And the government provided us a selection of those screen shots.
This led the AUSA to ask Judge Semper to provide clear guidelines of what they should be turning over, which led to this colloquy.
MR. CORTES: That I — One, the government, that the prosecutor, the A.U.S.A. should be the one conducting this search, applying the search term, applying, you know, conducting the review. Right? They should be the ones conducting the review.
THE COURT: Yes.
MR. CORTES: The other thing I would add is, if there is material before and after the visit that is dealing with how to deal with the members of the congress that are showing up or in the wake of the experience that is, that is, right, that is material, that deals with it, that deals with reactions, all of that as well.
THE COURT: Then I think we are in search term land.
MR. CORTES: Sure.
THE COURT: But for this period of time 12 and 5, Ijust think we are in, you know, what do the videos show, what do the text messages show land. And if there is something beyond that that you see, counsel, you are an officer of the court, I respect whatever representation you put before me.
You can do your search terms on the other areas outside of the block that I’ve mentioned. If there are things that relate to the congressional delegation and the visit, procedures that would occur, obviously, I’m very focused on 527, so anything that relates to that, would be fair game.
But for right now, let’s just do it quick and dirty; 12 to 5. And then anything that floats from that, that you think needs individualized assessment, come to me. I’m here
So one explanation for the late disclosure of these messages are that the Agents were withholding them in their own searches.
Amazing stupidity
We would be in terrible trouble if they were competent.
Whatever became of the word consequences? How is a serially criminal government held accountable?
Short answer: We the People, through the power of the ballot box.
If you’re talking about the sloppy contempt DOJ has for the courts, IANAL, but the 1 thing I’ve noticed is the Trump administration takes great pains to maintain a fig leaf of justification in court and elsewhere, like the “drug smuggling” that justifies blowing up small boats. That seems to be enough for judges to grant great leeway in court. That guy who repeatedly lied and ignored instructions from a judge walked away free to invade New Orleans.
Any luck would see the court require Blanche to attend hearings and answers questions.
DoJ begs the question when it says McIver’s conduct constituted assault on an ICE officer. Its circular reasoning seems to be dancing with illegitimate advocacy. Is it also failing to disclose exculpatory evidence to a criminal defendant.
Trump’s DoJ lawyers need to consider that, while Trump can pardon them for federal crimes, he can do nothing to protect their law licenses.
These are highly intelligent people well trained in both the legal system and how people act inside the system. So it always worries me immensely when a large number of them seem willing to act so idiotically in the face of the consequences you’ve laid out. It seems to imply that they don’t think that day will ever come. It’s an unsettling thought to wonder what conversations are had in hushed whispers (or secret signal chats) that gives them that confidence.
But are they really highly intelligent?
“I’d rather be pretty than smart. I can fake being smart.”
-Alina Habba
I am not at all sure these are “highly intelligent people well trained in both the legal system and how people act inside the system” although they do seem to expect no consequences. If they got their degrees and licenses the same way Trump got his degrees, perhaps they are all Trump University grads.
Suppressing exculpatory evidence is the most fundamental misconduct a prosecutor can commit. Just breathtaking.
And thank you thank you, eoh, for the correct usage of “begs the question,” for all those keeping score at home!
“I can’t define define proper question-begging, but I know it when I see it.”
I don’t read Emptywheel for nuffink.
The various bars spend most of their time and energy going after low hanging fruit and not the big law firms. (See CA Bar and Tom Girardi for a nice example). While it would be nice if the bars followed up on all the egregious lawyer behavior, it doesn’t happen as often as the comments sections want it to.
That’s normally true. But I think there’s a widespread and growing perception than when members of this phalanx of Trump lawyers gets caught doing the impermissible or illegal, bar committees need to make time to deal with them promptly.
A problem with self-policing.
They’re clearly considering the threat to their law licenses, but when one of the big data points is that the Virginia Bar punted on Halligan, that indicates they don’t have much to worry about.
VA Bar and Florida Bar both did not punt on Halligan and Bondi respectively. They punted on Acting USA and Attorney General, respectively. Non-political-appointee Halligan will be fair game once again. Future Fox News commentator and AEI visiting scholar Bondi will be fair game as well.
I’m amazed they got the Signal chats. They seem like something that DOJ would have withheld. Why did this supplemental hearing prompt this bit of information? Was DOJ afraid that it would be discovered even if it had not been provided?
McIver had been asking for it from the start, and DOJ had been stalling and stalling.
But after Semper deferred his immunity ruling on the Count Two, he ordered up this additional discovery on it. They went through several rounds on it though, likely with one still coming.
Thanks, Marcy. I must have missed how McIver became aware the Signal chats even existed…to know to ask for them. In the generic ask for communications, if she didn’t know about them specifically, I would have expected DOJ to conceal them.
They seem prone to habitual dishonesty. So, it seems out of character, unless they thought they would get caught.
At this point, I’d assume Signal or WhatsApp chats and request them. If they are not saved, the sanctions for spoilation are not kind. Additionally, the existence and contents of such chats are an explicit Prisoners’ Dilemma for all Trump appointees. A bitter, forced-out appointees or mid-level hire, let’s name them “Schmichael Schanton” can turn over chat records on January 21, 2029 as evidence of obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice, with the PRA.
She asked for all comms between agents. She may have mentioned that public reports say everyone is breaking the FRA. But in any case, she got these bc they were the comms in question, not bc she asked for Signal specifically.
Hey, Marcy, I appreciate your follow-up. Yeah, I finally realized that is what must have happened with a request for agent comms. Glad it did, but I’m still surprised.
But I have to admit, I remember one of my attorneys remarking how surprised he was with the amount of communications received in my case. Much more than expected.
Semper fly.
Yes, I’d heard this judge was a natty dresser.
It is surprising. More and more the current crowd seems to lean toward auto-delete and the oops defense.
“…that motion complained that, ‘the Defendant had not included among her exhibits the video footage that most clearly depicted the events described in Count Two’.”
So under Trump’s DOJ the *Defendant* has to provide prosecutors with discovery they want in order to punish her?
It’s almost as if ICE doesn’t believe that cell-phone videos exist putting the lie to their claims.