Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark), under federal indictment for nearly a year, has been scheduled to go before a panel of Third Circuit Court of Appeals judges on June 23 to make the case for why charges against her should be dismissed.
According to a court filing yesterday, the hearing will be held in Wilmington, Delaware, and could be moved to another day the week of June 22 if needed. The judges who will hear the case have not yet been announced.
The legal proceedings against McIver began on May 19, a week after a visit to the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center in Newark resulted in a scrum with federal immigration officers and the arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka. McIver said she was simply trying to defend herself and conduct an oversight visit, but then-interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba alleged she had “assaulted, impeded, and interfered with law enforcement.”
In the year since, Habba has been booted from her role by a federal judge and other controversial prosecutions of Trump critics elsewhere in the country have been dismissed – but McIver’s indictment has continued unscathed. The congresswoman, first elected less than two years ago, filed a series of motions asking for the charges to be thrown out, but was rejected by District Judge Jamel Semper.
In a 79-page appeal to the Third Circuit filed last month, her legal team recapped the reasons they believe the charges are invalid: they both violate the Constitution’s Speech or Debate clause protecting official legislative acts and represent vindictive and selective prosecution against a political foe, especially when compared to the Trump administration’s lenient treatment of January 6 rioters.
“The only way to square Congresswoman McIver’s indictment for assault with the dismissal of similar charges against January 6 defendants whose conduct was far more egregious is the most obvious explanation: the Administration embraces the political views of that group, but does not like hers,” the March 30 briefing stated. “A prosecution that turns on that distinction is unconstitutional.”
Buttressing McIver’s arguments is an amicus brief filed by 20 former members of Congress, 17 of them Republicans, who say that allowing the charges to proceed would have a chilling effect on legislators’ ability to perform their oversight duties and defy presidential administrations.
“To [fail to dismiss] would deter Members of Congress from carrying out their essential oversight responsibilities and insulate Executive abuses from the checks and balances the Constitution intends,” the amicus brief asserts. “Thus, it is no exaggeration to say that if this prosecution is allowed to proceed, it would imperil the constitutionally mandated powers of Congress and the fabric of our constitutional order.”