There is a disturbing quality to the Trump administration’s bringing charges against a member of Congress in connection with her attempted oversight visit to a New Jersey immigrant detention center. This comes at the behest of a president who, by the way, pardoned roughly 1,600 Jan. 6 protesters, some of whom attacked police officers with objects far more threatening than a forearm, as Representative LaMonica McIver is alleged to have done. But the nature of the incident, involving masked officers, is equally troubling.
On May 9, Ms. McIver was among a group that included two other members of Congress and Newark’s Democratic mayor, Ras J. Baraka, who sought to inspect the detention center. A conversation at the gate became heated as Ms. McIver and others surrounded Mr. Baraka, whom agents wanted to arrest for trespassing because he was not a federal official. In the scuffle that followed, the officials said Ms. McIver bumped a masked law enforcement officer. Whether this was intentional is not obvious from the several videos of the incident. For her part, Ms. McIver said she had been shoved by officers.
On Monday, the United States Justice Department charged Representative McIver with “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” — a stretch at best. It is hard to see the recent charges against the congresswoman as anything other than another attempt at intimidation.
The Trump administration has made a point of singling out Black women, including Ms. McIver and New York State Attorney General Letitia James, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and former Georgia State Representative Stacey Abrams.
President Trump played up Representative McIver’s arrest, accusing “that woman. I don’t know who she is,” of being “out of control,” saying, “the days of woke are over.” He did not mention the fact that after the alleged assault and the mayor’s arrest the Democratic lawmakers went on a one-hour tour of the detention center without incident. That would have undermined his administration’s dog-whistle narrative. The racist, misogynist targeting of Black women may be coded for portions of the Trump base but it is as unmistakable as it is deplorable.
It is worth asking ourselves as Americans if masked officers square with our concept of justice or are, in fact, a tool of a repressive regime intentionally cloaking its illegal acts. Without officers’ individual accountability, there is little to hold back the terrifying militaristic tactics now being used in a clear campaign to stifle dissent and spread fear of speaking out.
The freedom to say what one wants is one of the fundamental principles of the United States; we wonder if officers blatantly violating that ideal feel freer to do so with their identities concealed. As others have asked, at what point will we find ourselves a nation with a secret police — or are we there already?