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The “Boo Boos” and Bovino Bullshit DHS Uses to Criminalize Scrutiny

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I had been meaning to return to the parts of DOJ’s omnibus response to LaMonica McIver’s motions to dismiss her indictment anyway.

And then the following things happened:

Brayan Ramos-Brito

After Brayan Ramos-Brito was arrested for being assaulted by a Border Patrol officer, after he was held in pretrial detention for a week based on several claims that DOJ later admitted were lies (including that he said he was going to grab guns and shoot the agents, when he actually said he was going to fuck up the border patrol agents), after the initial felony assault charge was dismissed and then charged as a misdemeanor (first on something inaccurately called an indictment, and only later as an Information), and after getting several adverse rulings on motions in limine, Ramos-Brito was acquitted on Wednesday.

According to LAT, a juror said Ramos-Brito was acquitted because the government presented no video evidence showing the assault. Which means senior Border Patrol official, Gregory Bovino, destroyed his credibility for naught.

U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino — the brash agent who led a phalanx of military personnel into MacArthur Park this summer — was called as a witness Wednesday in a federal misdemeanor assault case against Brayan Ramos-Brito, who was accused of striking a federal agent.

Bovino, who flew in to testify from Chicago, the latest city targeted for an immigration enforcement surge, said he witnessed the alleged assault committed by Ramos-Brito in Paramount on June 7.

Bovino was questioned by the defense about previous comments he made referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum.”

[snip]

On a cross-examination, federal public defender Cuauhtemoc Ortega questioned Bovino about being the subject of a misconduct investigation a few years ago and receiving a reprimand for referring to undocumented immigrants as “scum, filth and trash.”

Bovino said he was referring to “a specific criminal illegal alien” — a Honduran national who he said had raped a child and reentered the United States and had been caught at or near the Baton Rouge Border Patrol station.

“I said that about a specific individual, not about undocumented peoples, that’s not correct,” he said.

Ortega pushed back, reading from the reprimand, which Bovino signed, stating that he was describing “illegal aliens.”

“They did not say one illegal alien,” Ortega said. “They said you describing illegal aliens, and or criminals, as scum, trash and filth is misconduct. Isn’t that correct?”

“The report states that,” Bovino said.

Not only did Bovino lead the staged invasion of MacArthur Park (which featured in Charles Breyer’s opinion ruling that DOD had violated the Posse Comitatus Act), but he’s the one who tried to menace Gavin Newsom during his announced plan to redistrict California. And he was caught lying to a jury.

Among the things Ramos-Brito was not permitted to do was conduct attorney-led voir dire to find out if anyone had seen Acting US Attorney Bill Essayli’s false propaganda about the arrests, posted on Xitter the day of the incident and still posted today, even after the dismissals and acquittal — yet more lies DHS and DOJ have told about the assaults that DHS officers have caused.

Sydney Reid

Meanwhile, in DC, DOJ asked to prevent Sydney Reid, who was accused of assaulting FBI agent Eugenia Bates while she was filming the ICE arrest of two people at the DC jail, from introducing the following evidence at trial:

  • That Bates called her “boo boos,” “boo boos”
  • That Bates twice complained that she had to turn this thing into an assault charge:
    • “I’m going to the attorneys [sic] office for a bystander that I tussled. Dinko arrested her for ‘assault’ ughhh”;
    • “Do you want the arrest EC separate from the ‘assault’ or am I good to put it in together in one 302”
  • That she called Reid a “lib tard”

The government appears to have no complaint if Reid introduces Bates comment that she said of her “boo boos:” “I sacrificed life and limb for the mission. I think it’s worth a trump coin,” which Reid included in her response.

Still, DOJ badly wants to prevent Reid from presenting evidence that not even Bates believed this was an assault.

Brad Lander

Yesterday, the government arrested Brad Lander, again, along with dozens of others, once again for protesting the treatment of ICE targets inside Federal Plaza.

At least 11 elected officials were arrested Thursday while protesting conditions at an immigration holding facility in Manhattan where a federal judge this week extended a court order requiring the government to shape up its treatment of detainees.

The officials, including Comptroller Brad Lander, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, State Senator Julia Salazar and Assemblywoman Jessica Gonzalez-Rojas, were among dozens of people detained during protests at 26 Federal Plaza. The government building, home to immigration court, the FBI’s New York field office and other federal offices, has become a hotbed of arrests and detention amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

Several officials were arrested inside the building while attempting to inspect holding rooms on the 10th floor that are the subject of ongoing litigation alleging squalid conditions and overcrowding, according to a coalition of politicians, advocates and faith leaders involved in the protest.

The arrests came in the wake of an order from Judge Lewis Kaplan requiring that DHS treat those being held at 26 Federal Plaza humanely.

The Court’s preliminary injunction will not prevent defendants from pursuing the policies they have set. It merely will require that they conform to the demands of the Constitution in doing so. It is up to defendants to choose whether they wish to expend resources to conform 26 Fed to those requirements, or to alter the rate at which they are funneling arrestees into 26 Fed and other facilities, or to select or obtain facilities where detainees can be held in a humane and constitutional manner.

Here, plaintiff has demonstrated clear and imminent irreparable harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction and a likelihood of success on the merits of his First and Fifth Amendment claims arising from the substandard conditions and barriers to attorney-client communication at 26 Fed. Because the injunction would halt ongoing constitutional injuries while merely requiring adherence to standards defendants have already adopted for their immigration detention facilities across the country, the balance of the equities and the public interest decisively favor plaintiff.

This time, Lander wasn’t assaulted as he was arrested, and the government released those protesting with summonses.

But DHS continues to try to criminalize opposition to its abuses.

LaMonica McIver

Which is why two aspects of the LaMonica McIver response are notable.

One of McIver’s motions was to get DHS to take down a series of egregiously false claims that DHS and its propagandist, Tricia McLaughlin, had made about the incident at Delaney Hall. The government’s response to this was similar to that offered in the Kilmar Abrego case — that DOJ did not control DHS.

As an initial matter, it should be noted that the U.S. Attorney’s Office does not exercise authority over DHS even at a local level. Nevertheless, this Office has communicated with DHS to request that DHS remove the postings to which Defendant objects. To the extent that DHS does so, McIver’s motion will be moot.

But while DHS had not removed the offending propaganda before the court filing, they now have done so.

Nevertheless, DOJ cited some of those very same propaganda posts, which McIver also cited in her selective prosecution filing, in arguing that threats against DHS have gone up astronomically. (I’ve color coded the three references so you can see how they correspond.)

Since then, and as reflected in the multiple press releases and articles referenced by McIver, assaults and threats against DHS officers have increased exponentially.12 According to DHS, ICE officials faced an 830 percent increase in assaults between January 21 and July 14, 2025, compared with the same period in 2024.13 Seemingly recognizing the dangers that DHS officers have been uniquely facing, McIver “introduce[ed], as her first bill in Congress, the DHS Better Ballistic Body Armor Act, which would increase the availability of protective body armor designed to fit the bodies of female agents.” ECF 20-1, at 8. DHS also introduced a new policy for the protection of law enforcement officers requiring notice for a visit to its facilities, noting that the policy was “made in response to ‘a surge in assaults, disruptions and obstructions to enforcement, including by politicians themselves.’”14 In response to the DHS policy, on July 30, 2025, 12 Members of Congress filed a civil Complaint against ICE objecting to the new policy and seeking injunctive relieve.15 McIver, who was at Delaney Hall to conduct oversight, is neither a named plaintiff nor mentioned in the Complaint.

12 See, e.g., ECF 20-1, at 13 n.23 (article quoting DHS official that ICE law enforcement officers faced a 413 percent increase in assaults against them at the time), n.25 (DHS press release claiming “[a]ttacks and smears against ICE have resulted in officers facing a 413% increase in assaults”), n.26 (DHS press release discussing alleged disclosure of an ICE agent’s information by Democratic Congressman Salud Carbajal, and a subsequent alleged assault on that agent during an enforcement action); see also n.23 (article discussing incident involving Senator Alex Padilla where U.S. Secret Service purportedly “thought he was an attacker’” during a DHS press conference).

13 Id. at 13 n.27 (Press Release, Department of Homeland Security, DHS Announces ICE Law Enforcement are Now Facing an 830 Percent Increase in Assaults (July 15, 2025) (emphasis omitted), available at https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/15/dhs-announcesice-law-enforcement-are-now-facing-830-percent-increase-assaults).

14 Michael Gold, ICE Imposes New Rules on Congressional Visits, N.Y. Times (June 19, 2025), www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/politics/ice-congress.html; ECF 20-1, at 14 n.28; see also Homeland Security (@DHSgov), X (July 11, 2025, at 6:28 PM) (posting on X that “sufficient notice to facilitate a visit . . . is essential to keep staff and detainees safe”), https://x.com/dhsgov/status/1943799482342109463?s=46&t=-VXhB76r-zYF5BuEUXYkQ.

15 Complaint, Neguse v. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 25-CV-02463, ECF. No 1 at 64 (D.D.C. July 30, 2025).

McIver cited these links not for the truth, but to demonstrate that as part of an effort to evade oversight, DHS was lying its ass off.

The events at Delaney Hall marked the first of three times ICE forcefully detained officials investigating its activities in the course of a month.23 And DHS has since pursued a press strategy to undermine congressional oversight authority over its facilities. Even before the end of the May 9 visit, DHS issued a press release falsely describing Congresswoman McIver and the other Members as having “stormed the [Delaney Hall] gate and broke[n] into the detention facility,” calling the visit “a bizarre political stunt.”24 A week later, DHS issued a news release to “[d]ebunk” the notion that the visit to Delaney Hall “was ‘oversight’”—“it is actually trespassing and put ICE officers and detainees at risk.”25 DHS renewed this rhetoric in July, issuing a third press release related to Congresswoman McIver, this time suggesting that her actions were “just another case of Democratic lawmakers labeling political stunts as oversight while they endanger the safety of ICE personnel.”26 DHS doubled down on that framing the next day, stating in yet another new post that “Democratic members of Congress,” including “Representative LaMonica McIver (D-NJ),” have “been caught red-handed doxing and even physically assaulting ICE officials.”27

23 Compl. ¶¶ 31-32, 43 Baraka v. Habba, 25-cv-06846 (June 4, 2025), ECF No. 1; Michael Williams et. al, US Senator Forcefully Removed From DHS Event in LA, Triggering Democratic Outcry on Capitol Hill, CNN (June 12, 2025), https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/12/politics/alexpadilla-removed-noem-press-conference; Luis Ferré-Sadurní, Brad Lander Is Arrested by ICE Agents at Immigration Courthouse, N.Y. Times (June 17, 2025), https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/17/nyregion/brad-lander-immigration-ice.html.

24 Press Release, DHS, Members of Congress Break into Delaney Hall Detention Center (May 9, 2025), https://perma.cc/G6MH-2KXF.

25 Press Release, DHS, DHS Debunks Fake News Narratives About Law Enforcement During Police Week (May 16, 2025), https://perma.cc/9XKE-3K3U.

26 Press Release, DHS, ICE Employee Attacked by Rioters After Congressman Doxes Him to Mob at California Marijuana Facility (July 14, 2025), https://perma.cc/3GNL-PWE6.

27 Press Release, DHS, DHS Announces ICE Law Enforcement are Now Facing an 830 Percent Increase in Assaults (July 15, 2025), https://perma.cc/7YZP-PGWS.

The only one of four withdrawn press releases that DOJ did not cite here is the one falsely claiming that members of Congress arrived to Delaney Hall on a bus. They’ve also subsequently posted another bullshit post (which repeats a false claim McLaughlin made about the ICE assault of Christian Enrique Carias Torres, whose case has also been dismissed), to make sure their slander of Congressman Carbajal remains accessible.

DOJ’s use of these false (and now withdrawn) press releases creates the illusion that the new policy, unlawfully requiring a week’s notice before members of Congress conduct oversight at a detention facility, was set up in response to the assault alleged against McIver.

To claim there is “clear evidence” of discriminatory intent supporting her selective enforcement claim, McIver points to three areas: 1) press statements issued by DHS that are sharply critical of her conduct on the day she arrived at Delaney Hall to conduct an unscheduled inspection tour; 2) the implementation of a new DHS policy after the charges were against her were filed that applies to all Members of Congress requiring them to give seven days prior notice of an oversight inspection tour of certain immigration facilities; and 3) the detention/interaction by law enforcement with three Democratic politicians including Defendant within the space of approximately one month. See ECF 20-1, at 13-15, 22-23.

[snip]

Relatedly, Defendant points to the DHS policy enacted after the events at Delaney Hall on May 9, 2025, requiring Members of Congress to give at least seven days’ notice in advance of conducting an oversight inspection tour of an immigration detention facility. Defendant believes this is somehow evidence of discriminatory intent in conducting an “enforcement action” against her even though the policy was enacted after McIver had been charged. The logic of this claim is elusive, especially when the policy, at least in part, furthers the legitimate purpose of avoiding situations like that which occurred on May 9, 2025, by ensuring that appropriate security measures may be taken in advance of such an oversight visit.

All of this, of course, is an attempt to narrow the issue to what happened after Todd Blanche ordered Ricky Patel to arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka even after Baraka left Delaney Hall, rather than include details of the decision — from the guy now in charge of this prosecution team — to criminalize someone who had followed the orders of a cop.

To the contrary, the jury will hear such details only if McIver introduces them over the Government’s Rule 401/403/jury nullification objections. But even if those objections are overruled, the speech or debate analysis focuses on what the Government has alleged (and, thus, how the Government will prove it), not on how the defendant hopes to defend herself. Here, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that McIver violated 18 U.S.C. § 111(a)(1), the Government will prove that on May 9, 2025, she used her forearms to forcibly strike a federal Agent who was attempting to arrest someone outside the gate to Delaney Hall, and she used her hands to forcibly grab and pull at that agent’s jacket. ECF No. 1 at 5, ¶¶ 13,14 and 16. Nothing about that touches on oversight activities.

This goes to the heart of separation of powers issues, which is why McIver’s attempt to rely on Trump v. US has real merit. Todd Blanche ordered agents from a different agency to arrest someone — Newark’s Mayor — trying to conduct oversight, even after he had left the premises. After discovering that arrest was based off false claims, they’re now trying to criminalize the physical conflict — including what McIver said in real time was an assault of her — that resulted. And in this filing, they rely on that effort to criminalize conducting oversight to excuse their unlawful attempt to evade oversight with the week notice requirement.

Over and over, DHS has been caught lying about assaults on its officers, presenting assaults of arrestees as instead assaults on their officers.

And in McIver’s case, they’re trying to double down on withdrawn propaganda to claim the problem that Todd Blanche caused can be pinned on Congressional oversight.

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Remember when Brad Lander Caught Kristi Noem Stealing $80 Million?

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It’s perhaps a timely moment to recall that Brad Lander has tangled with Kristi Noem before.

Back when DOGE and DHS clawed back $80 million awarded to New York City to house migrants, Lander was the guy who called them out — and insisted on suing.

New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said the abrupt decision was an illegal diversion by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency of money used to house asylum-seekers admitted to the U.S. under President Joe Biden.

“President Trump and his crony Elon Musk illegally executed a revocation of $80 million in congressionally-appropriated FEMA funding from New York City’s bank accounts,” Lander said in a statement. “This highway robbery of our funds directly out of our bank account is a betrayal of everyone who calls New York City home.”

Lander’s statement came after the Trump administration claimed the city had received disaster relief funds to house migrants in luxury hotels. Musk posted that his DOGE “discovered” the funding on Monday, calling it “a gross insubordination to the President’s executive order.”

The funds were administered by FEMA, a subagency of the Department of Homeland Security. A 2024 report from Lander’s office found that the city paid an average rate of $156 a night for hotel rooms booked through an agreement with the Hotel Association of New York City.

The seizure of funds could result in cuts to city services.

“We can’t recover money we already spent on shelter and services for asylum seekers, so it would require cutting $80 million of some other city expenses,” Lander said.

This happened the very week that Eric Adams was cozying up to Tom Homan — which Dale Ho judged was evidence of a quid pro quo.

Lander took a shot at Mayor Eric Adams for not standing up to Trump, saying that “If instead Mayor Adams continues to be President Trump’s pawn, my Office will request to work in partnership with the New York City Law Department to pursue aggressive legal action.”

Adams said Wednesday that he is in talks with the White House about recovering the money, and that he’s requested an emergency meeting with FEMA to resolve the matter. “The Corporation Counsel is already exploring various litigation options,” he added, in a statement on X.

Adams is scheduled to meet Thursday with Trump border czar Tom Homan, who demanded cooperation from the Democrat during a radio interview Tuesday, saying, “Either he comes to the table or we go around him.”

Adams didn’t insist on getting the money back. On the contrary, Trump’s Administration has continued to steal from New York City.

In fact, the day before Kristi Noem’s goons detained Brad Lander on his third visit accompanying migrants, New York’s lawyers amended their complaint about the theft — to update the Acting FEMA Administrator, to capitalize the words, “Money Grab” (to distinguish it from several other newly alleged harms), to describe the further arbitrary attempts to justify stealing the funds, first by terminating the program six weeks after DOGE took the money, then by launching an onerous investigation.

20. Then, with the purported compliance review apparently uncompleted, FEMA announced on April 1, 2025, that it was terminating SSP entirely. FEMA stated that it was terminating the City’s SSP award for the entirely different reason that the grants “no longer effectuate [] the program goals or agency priorities” (quoting 2 C.F.R. § 200.340(a)(2) (2020)). But the regulation FEMA cited does not permit a federal agency to cancel a grant program funded by Congressional appropriation simply because it has changed its mind and now opposes the program.

21. Not only that. While FEMA’s termination letter provides for a closeout process at the end of which FEMA will determine whether any additional SSP grant funds are owed the City, all SSP funds that were awarded the City and that would have remained available to make any such payment were apparently zeroed out on USASpending.gov more than six weeks earlier.

22. Collectively, these events make plain that Defendants determined to overturn the Congressional appropriation, deny the City SSP funds, and re-take any funds they could find a way to lay their hands on.

The amendment also catches FEMA making false representations to Rhode Island Judge John McConnell and in this lawsuit.

125, Despite Defendants’ representations — to the District Court in Rhode Island on February 11 and, as set forth more fully below, a week later in the Remedy for Noncompliance Letter — that the SSP funds were merely being “paused” or “temporarily” withheld pending a further review, Defendants had elsewhere already recorded the funds as no longer available at all.

The amended suit also describes that — as Trump did with Harvard — FEMA has also launched an onerous investigation into the city, and asks questions similar to the ones demanded of Harvard.

221. Joseph N. Mazzara, Acting General Counsel for defendant DHS, sent City OMB a letter dated June 4, 2025 announcing a “Notice of Investigation and Demand for Records: Shelter and Services Program Grant Awards” (“Notice of Investigation”). Under the guise of investigating the City’s expenditure of SSP funds, the Notice of Investigation sets forth a series of document demands and “interrogatories” that reach far beyond the scope of anything related to the City’s expenditures of federal SSP funds

[snip]

222. The scope of the demand far exceeds anything related to the administration of SSP. For example, the demand seeks, without apparent limitation or connection to immigrants served under SSP:

  • “All documents related to Your compliance with 8 U.S.C. g 1324.”
  • “All documents related to any instructions, guidance, suggestions, or recommendations for aliens to consider” in completing immigration or other government forms or interacting with any federal or state government officials.”
  • “All documents related to Your cooperation with law enforcement (including immigration officials) concerning aliens whom You have encountered'”
  • “All documents related to instructions, guidance, or recommendations, made available to aliens, regarding how to interact with law enforcement.”
  • A list of al “categories of information You have collected about any aliens.”

223. Despite the exceedingly broad scope of the demands, the Notice of Investigation provides just 30 days within which OMB “must produce” the records and information sought.

Admittedly, the lawyers are the ones now driving this fight, not Lander.

But the fight is about money Lander caught Kristi Noem stealing.

Lander’s detention thus bears a third similarity with that of Ras Baraka: both men had sued DHS, both arrests constituted — per Emil Bove’s representations to Dale Ho — election interference, and in both cases, Noem’s goons premeditated the arrest.

This is beginning to look like a pattern.

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Why Kristi Noem’s Kidnapping of Brad Lander Failed … Thus Far

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In my opinion, three things thwarted Kristi Noem’s attempt to interfere in Brad Lander’s campaign to be NYC’s Mayor by detaining him yesterday:

  • Independent media
  • Solidarity
  • The law

Independent media

I’m increasingly perplexed that when people make lists of prominent Democrats that Noem’s goons have targeted, they leave off David Huerta, the CA SEIU President arrested on a public sidewalk in front of a garment factory where ICE was conducting a search.

I increasingly think the omission may stem from the dearth of video coverage of his arrest — which basically consisted of two ICE guys picking him up and then pushing him down, leading to him knocking his head on the curb (for which he got hospital treatment).

Brad Lander’s detention, by contrast, was quickly covered by independent media present or close by.

I first learned about the detention when The City’s Gwynne Hogan reported it (and posted a shorter version of the above video) in real time. Here’s their story on the detention.

Hell Gate provided updates, including about the protest outside and Lander’s past visits to the courthouse to accompany migrants to court hearings.

AMNY’s Dean Moses posted this picture, which contrasted the fully masked man conducting the arrest with the violence the  ICE goons were using in their detention of Lander.

Mainstream media (with exceptions like Wired) may not save us. But the diligence of independent outlets could.

NYT has the ability to sustain all that independent journalism. But if you can — especially if you live in New York — you might consider supporting them (recall that The City did a lot of the reporting on Eric Adams’ corruption before bigger outlets picked up the story).

Solidarity

That reporting allowed a group (including Zohran Mamdani and four other Mayoral candidates) to peacefully assemble in front of the courthouse. Eventually, even Kathy Hochul came to the courthouse and accompanied Lander as he was released, calling his arrest “bullshit.”

Hochul announced she’ll provide some state funding for the migrants who’re being targeted as they attend court hearings, the problem that Lander was trying to address.

Lander, after he was released, emphasized that he gets to go home but the man he attempted to accompany today, a man named Edgardo, was in ICE detention.

One important point of all this is the underlying solidarity. This was not Lander’s first visit accompanying people; among the folks respond to his detention were one who had been inspired by his actions to engage as well, and another who had provided an Arabic translator some weeks ago. Contrary to what silly pundits have started to argue, the point is not to get arrested. The point is to create friction for Stephen Miller’s dragnet. The point is to bring visibility and opposition to inhumane treatment.

American Prospect’s story on the arrest focused on that.

It’s not only the courtroom treatment of defendants that’s egregious. So are the living conditions at 26 Federal Plaza. In an interview with the Prospect, Daniel Coates, director of public affairs at Make the Road New York, said that ICE is using the building to hold people for multiple days before transferring them elsewhere, packing them in so tightly that some have no room to sleep except for on the bathroom floor. The rooms are hot because the air-conditioning is inadequate, detainees have “no opportunities to get a change of clothes or clean themselves,” have no access to medical treatment, and cannot maintain their dietary restrictions, said Coates, who spoke at the press conference held after Lander’s detention.

“The space is exploding,” Coates said, “and it’s sort of a black hole there because ICE is refusing entry to members of Congress,” who are supposed to be allowed to oversee such buildings. It’s an open question of “what actually 26 Federal Plaza is being used for,” he said.

The point is not the arrest. The point is to expand solidarity.

The law

I think there were a number of reasons SDNY couldn’t charge Lander, at least not yet:

  • According to one of the journalists there, one of the ICE goons said to another before Lander did anything “do you want to arrest the Comptroller?” Like the Ras Baraka arrest, it was premeditated and had little to do with his own actions.
  • Because media was there, because Moses took that really damning photo, it ensured that there was plenty of footage that would make it viable to rebut a prosecutor’s hypothetical claim that Lander was resisting or (even more outlandish) assaulting them. It’s true that cops can convict on 18 USC 111 charges where someone wrestles with the cop, but here Lander would have a viable argument that this was all about assaulting him.
  • At one point, Lander asked for one of the ICE officers’ badge number but didn’t get it, and both the goons who arrested him were in plain clothes and one was entirely masked. He repeatedly asked to see a judicial warrant (only an administrative warrant is required); but the ICE officer merely waved a paper at him. To sustain an 18 USC 111 case, the government would have to show that these were officers conducting their duty, both they refused to prove that to Lander before they detained him.
  • While Lander did get the law wrong on at least one count (that ICE couldn’t arrest US citizens at all), the law does say that they can only arrest without a warrant in case of a flight risk. There is not a chance in hell that NYC’s current Comptroller and aspiring Mayor would flee, so he could make a good case that the arrest itself was illegal.
  • The problem I laid out yesterday; Emil Bove already told an SDNY judge that Eric Adams merely being prosecuted was election interference. Lander was going to have a very good case that DHS was attempting to help Adams and hurt Lander.

But for both the last two reasons, this may not be over. The NYT quoted a SDNY spox suggesting the government could still charge this, perhaps after the Mayoral race.

A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office said in a statement that the office was investigating Mr. Lander’s actions, but said nothing about criminal charges. The spokesman, Nicholas Biase, noted that federal law prohibited assaults on law enforcement and other public officials and obstruction of official proceedings.

That doesn’t mean those charges would succeed. It means they might try to avoid the obvious hypocrisy of dismissing charges against one NYC mayoral candidate by waiting to charge another.

Update: I asked SDNY if they had opened an election interference investigation into the people who arrested Lander. Spox Nicholas Biase declined to comment.

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Kristi Noem’s Goons Engage in what Emil Bove Calls Election Interference

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Update: Lander has been released. He lost a button. The charges were dropped. 

Further update: The key to Lander’s release was the superb, immediate reporting from The City and Hell Gate. If you are so inclined, please consider a donation.

According to a reporter from The City, Federal agents just detained NYC Comptroller Brad Lander as he accompanied someone from an immigration hearing.

This comes after early voting in the Mayoral primary has already started.

Just as importantly, it comes four months after DOJ dismissed a years-long investigation into Eric Adams for alleged foreign influence peddling because of this very primary.

Back in February, the government provided two bases to excuse their bid to dismiss the prosecution against Adams: because being subjected to the prosecution amounted to election interference, and also interfered with his ability to carry out his duties as Mayor.

5. In connection with that determination and directive, the Acting Deputy Attorney General concluded that dismissal is necessary because of appearances of impropriety and risks of interference with the 2025 elections in New York City, which implicate Executive Order 14147, 90 Fed. Reg. 8235. The Acting Deputy Attorney General reached that conclusion based on, among other things, review of a website2 maintained by a former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and an op-ed published by that former U.S. Attorney.3

6. In connection with that determination and directive, the Acting Deputy Attorney General also concluded that continuing these proceedings would interfere with the defendant’s ability to govern in New York City, which poses unacceptable threats to public safety, national security, and related federal immigration initiatives and policies. See, e.g., Executive Order 14159, 90 Fed. Reg. 8443; Executive Order 14165, 90 Fed. Reg. 8467. The Acting Deputy Attorney General reached that conclusion after learning, among other things, that as a result of these proceedings, Adams has been denied access to sensitive information that the Acting Deputy Attorney General believes is necessary for Adams to govern and to help protect the City.

Judge Dale Ho repeatedly asked Emil Bove about his claim that the long-standing prosecution against Eric Adams constituted election interference (as well as about the claim it interfered with his ability to carry out his duties).

THE COURT: OK. There is also a reference, I think, in the paragraph to interference with the 2025 mayoral election. I have a similar question here, and it’s whether or not that’s a representation about the purpose or the effect of the prosecution or both?

MR. BOVE: I mean, frankly, I think the fact that Mayor Adams is sitting to my left right now is part of the problem. He’s not able to be out running the City and campaigning. I think that is actual interference with the election.

THE COURT: It’s having that effect.

MR. BOVE: Correct. I think the pendency of this motion right now has that effect.

THE COURT: OK.

[snip]

THE COURT: My understanding of that rationale is that it arises from a defendant’s status as a candidate. That it’s because, at least that portion about election interference, I mean, it’s because the defendant in this case is a candidate for office, not because he’s a public official. So, in other words, that rationale could apply to a candidate who’s not a public official?

MR. BOVE: Correct.

THE COURT: And it wouldn’t apply to a public official who’s not a candidate, so an unelected public official or a retiring public official or retired public official wouldn’t apply, the election interference component of what you’re applying to?

MR. BOVE: It applies to candidates. [my emphasis]

“I think that is actual interference with the election,” a (still) top-ranking DOJ official told a Federal judge about a prosecution of one of the candidates in the NYC primary for Mayor.

And then, four months later, Federal agents detained one of his opponents, after the election had already started (to say nothing of interfering with his ability to govern).

By Emil Bove’s standards, Kristi Noem’s goons just violated the law.

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