On March 21, Mayor Ras Baraka walked out of the federal courthouse in Newark a free man. After filing a preposterous criminal trespass complaint against the mayor for briefly coming onto the grounds of an ICE detention center, New Jersey’s acting US Attorney Alina dropped the claim just two weeks later “for the sake of moving forward.” Instead, she opted to charge Rep. LaMonica McIver for assaulting ICE agents as they tried to arrest Mayor Baraka.
Habba made a grand gesture of offering to personally chaperone the mayor on a tour the ICE facility in his own city — a facility that was reportedly blocking city health and safety inspectors until quite recently. That offer is probably off the table now, as Baraka sued Habba and Ricky Patel, the DHS Special Agent who swore out the criminal complaint, this morning.
Baraka’s complaint is … somewhat problematic. He purports to sue Habba and Patel in their personal, rather than official capacities, alleging that they acted as “political operative[s]” and “outside of any function intimately related to the judicial process.” But it’s harder to get around prosecutorial immunity than it is to type “Habba was not serving in a prosecutorial function when she acted with DHS agents in the scheme to arrest Mayor Baraka.” And it’s even more difficult when you’re alleging defamation, particularly when your complaint notes that DHS repeated Habba’s false allegations. If she wasn’t speaking in an official capacity, then why would the government bother republishing what she said?
But before this case gets mired down in Federal Tort Claims and Westfall Act squabbles, let’s take a moment to listen to all the weird echoes here, as is typical in Trumpland litigation.
Baraka is represented by famed New Jersey litigator Nancy Erika Smith, best known for representing Gretchen Carlson in her harassment suit against Fox and Roger Ailes. Smith sued Trump’s New Jersey golf club on behalf of the waitress Habba cornered at the Bedminster breakfast bar and persuaded to sign away her sexual harassment claim for the paltry sum of $15,000, via a blatantly unenforceable contract.
Habba sued Hillary Clinton and a stringboard full of Democrats for doing the RICO in a disastrous trollsuit that also named former FBI director James Comey and former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, both of whom moved to substitute the government claiming that they acted in an official capacity. Habba and Trump were jointly fined $1 million in attorney’s fees for dragging half of DC into a Florida courtroom.
Habba also represented Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation and assault suits in which she argued without success that Trump had been acting in his official capacity when he said the advice columnist was too ugly to assault. Now that he’s back in the White House, the government is once again trying to substitute itself as defendant while the case is on appeal to the Second Circuit.
But perhaps the weaknesses in the mayor’s suit won’t matter in the end. Habba famously failed to assert presidential immunity in timely fashion on behalf of Trump, thereby waiving the defense. If she represents herself the way she represented the president, well … the feds could be cutting a very big check!
Baraka v. Habba [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
The post Newark Mayor Sues Alina Habba For MA’AM, DO YOU EVEN LAW? appeared first on Above the Law.
On March 21, Mayor Ras Baraka walked out of the federal courthouse in Newark a free man. After filing a preposterous criminal trespass complaint against the mayor for briefly coming onto the grounds of an ICE detention center, New Jersey’s acting US Attorney Alina dropped the claim just two weeks later “for the sake of moving forward.” Instead, she opted to charge Rep. LaMonica McIver for assaulting ICE agents as they tried to arrest Mayor Baraka.
Habba made a grand gesture of offering to personally chaperone the mayor on a tour the ICE facility in his own city — a facility that was reportedly blocking city health and safety inspectors until quite recently. That offer is probably off the table now, as Baraka sued Habba and Ricky Patel, the DHS Special Agent who swore out the criminal complaint, this morning.
Baraka’s complaint is … somewhat problematic. He purports to sue Habba and Patel in their personal, rather than official capacities, alleging that they acted as “political operative[s]” and “outside of any function intimately related to the judicial process.” But it’s harder to get around prosecutorial immunity than it is to type “Habba was not serving in a prosecutorial function when she acted with DHS agents in the scheme to arrest Mayor Baraka.” And it’s even more difficult when you’re alleging defamation, particularly when your complaint notes that DHS repeated Habba’s false allegations. If she wasn’t speaking in an official capacity, then why would the government bother republishing what she said?
But before this case gets mired down in Federal Tort Claims and Westfall Act squabbles, let’s take a moment to listen to all the weird echoes here, as is typical in Trumpland litigation.
Baraka is represented by famed New Jersey litigator Nancy Erika Smith, best known for representing Gretchen Carlson in her harassment suit against Fox and Roger Ailes. Smith sued Trump’s New Jersey golf club on behalf of the waitress Habba cornered at the Bedminster breakfast bar and persuaded to sign away her sexual harassment claim for the paltry sum of $15,000, via a blatantly unenforceable contract.
Habba sued Hillary Clinton and a stringboard full of Democrats for doing the RICO in a disastrous trollsuit that also named former FBI director James Comey and former Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, both of whom moved to substitute the government claiming that they acted in an official capacity. Habba and Trump were jointly fined $1 million in attorney’s fees for dragging half of DC into a Florida courtroom.
Habba also represented Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation and assault suits in which she argued without success that Trump had been acting in his official capacity when he said the advice columnist was too ugly to assault. Now that he’s back in the White House, the government is once again trying to substitute itself as defendant while the case is on appeal to the Second Circuit.
But perhaps the weaknesses in the mayor’s suit won’t matter in the end. Habba famously failed to assert presidential immunity in timely fashion on behalf of Trump, thereby waiving the defense. If she represents herself the way she represented the president, well … the feds could be cutting a very big check!
Baraka v. Habba [Docket via Court Listener]
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.
