Pam Bondi’s Four Political Prosecutions
Alina Habba announced the indictment of LaMonica McIver at 6:56PM on Tuesday night, an hour before polls in the New Jersey gubernatorial primary — in which Ras Baraka, referred to as Individual 1 in the indictment, ended up being the second-highest vote-getter — closed. The timing was dictated by a hearing scheduled for the next day, not the primary, but after being admonished by Magistrate Judge André Espionsa, it was an inappropriate rush to announce her trophy before polls closed, particularly since it took almost a day to get the indictment docketed.
There was a lot of shitty reporting based on Habba’s press release about the arrest.
I’ll unpack the indictment (which adds a misdemeanor instance of the two felony charges, 18 USC 111, that were announced in the complaint). The story Alina Habba tells about Baraka keeps changing, and that’s before you consider the parts of the story she doesn’t tell (and undoubtedly didn’t tell the grand jury that indicted the case).
But first I want to lay out elements of a pattern.
This is the fourth instance where Pam Bondi’s DOJ has charged a Democrat who did not meekly collude in DHS’ immigration gulag: Milwaukee Judge Hanna Dugan, Baraka, McIver, and David Huerta (they had to dismiss the charges against Baraka, and he is suing for malicious prosecution).
A pattern is emerging.
All of these cases were charged as complaint, even though both the Dugan and McIver case had time to go before a grand jury.
In the three assault-realted cases, Homeland Security has attested them; these may be men moved from their day job hunting international crime to carrying out Stephen Miller’s gulag.
In all cases, Pam Bondi’s people did something — posting a picture of Hannah Dugan handcuffed, Habba making false claims about Baraka and McIver on her personal Xitter account and then announcing the McIver indictment before polls closed in New Jersey, Acting US Attorney Bill Essayli posting about the Huerta assault before it was charged — that violates DOJ’s media guidelines. In the assault related cases, HSI arguably assaulted a Democrat doing something legal (Congressional and Mayoral oversight in the New Jersey case, peaceful protest on a public sidewalk in Huerta’s case), and charged them for it — though DHS has done that with non-public citizens as well.
None of this means these cases (Baraka’s excepted) will fail. It means the people Bondi keeps charging even after being admonished in the Baraka case (and the Eric Adams case) will be able to point back to an increasing pattern.