{"id":121579,"date":"2025-06-03T10:47:29","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T18:47:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/03\/newark-mayor-sues-alina-habba-for-maam-do-you-even-law\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T10:47:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T18:47:29","slug":"newark-mayor-sues-alina-habba-for-maam-do-you-even-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/06\/03\/newark-mayor-sues-alina-habba-for-maam-do-you-even-law\/","title":{"rendered":"Newark Mayor Sues Alina Habba For MA\u2019AM, DO YOU EVEN LAW?"},"content":{"rendered":"

On March 21, Mayor Ras Baraka walked out of the federal courthouse in Newark a free man. After filing a preposterous criminal trespass complaint<\/a> against the mayor for briefly coming onto the grounds of an ICE detention center, New Jersey\u2019s acting US Attorney Alina dropped<\/a> the claim just two weeks later \u201cfor the sake of moving forward.\u201d Instead, she opted to charge<\/a> Rep. LaMonica McIver for assaulting ICE agents as they tried to arrest Mayor Baraka.<\/p>\n

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\ud83d\udea8 Today my office has charged Congresswoman McIver with violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 111(a)(1) for assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement. pic.twitter.com\/TV00uwRtKq<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 US Attorney Habba (@USAttyHabba) May 19, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Habba made a grand gesture of offering to personally chaperone the mayor on a tour the ICE facility in his own city \u2014 a facility that was reportedly blocking<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

Baraka\u2019s complaint<\/a> is \u2026 somewhat problematic. He purports to sue Habba and Patel in their personal, rather than official capacities, alleging that they acted as \u201cpolitical operative[s]\u201d and \u201coutside of any function intimately related to the judicial process.\u201d But it\u2019s harder to get around prosecutorial immunity than it is to type \u201cHabba was not serving in a prosecutorial function when she acted with DHS agents in the scheme to arrest Mayor Baraka.\u201d And it\u2019s even more difficult when you\u2019re alleging defamation, particularly when your complaint notes that DHS repeated Habba\u2019s false allegations. If she wasn\u2019t speaking in an official capacity, then why would the government bother republishing what she said?<\/p>\n

But before this case gets mired down in Federal Tort Claims and Westfall Act squabbles, let\u2019s take a moment to listen to all the weird echoes here, as is typical in Trumpland litigation. <\/p>\n

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<\/a> Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> in attorney\u2019s fees for dragging half of DC into a Florida courtroom.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

But perhaps the weaknesses in the mayor\u2019s suit won\u2019t matter in the end. Habba famously failed to assert presidential immunity in timely fashion<\/a> on behalf of Trump, thereby waiving the defense. If she represents herself the way she represented the president, well \u2026 the feds could be cutting a very big check!<\/p>\n

Baraka v. Habba<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

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Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The post Newark Mayor Sues Alina Habba For MA\u2019AM, DO YOU EVEN LAW?<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by SAUL LOEB\/AFP via Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On March 21, Mayor Ras Baraka walked out of the federal courthouse in Newark a free man. After filing a preposterous criminal trespass complaint<\/a> against the mayor for briefly coming onto the grounds of an ICE detention center, New Jersey\u2019s acting US Attorney Alina dropped<\/a> the claim just two weeks later \u201cfor the sake of moving forward.\u201d Instead, she opted to charge<\/a> Rep. LaMonica McIver for assaulting ICE agents as they tried to arrest Mayor Baraka.<\/p>\n

Habba made a grand gesture of offering to personally chaperone the mayor on a tour the ICE facility in his own city \u2014 a facility that was reportedly blocking<\/a> 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. <\/p>\n

Baraka\u2019s complaint<\/a> is \u2026 somewhat problematic. He purports to sue Habba and Patel in their personal, rather than official capacities, alleging that they acted as \u201cpolitical operative[s]\u201d and \u201coutside of any function intimately related to the judicial process.\u201d But it\u2019s harder to get around prosecutorial immunity than it is to type \u201cHabba was not serving in a prosecutorial function when she acted with DHS agents in the scheme to arrest Mayor Baraka.\u201d And it\u2019s even more difficult when you\u2019re alleging defamation, particularly when your complaint notes that DHS repeated Habba\u2019s false allegations. If she wasn\u2019t speaking in an official capacity, then why would the government bother republishing what she said?<\/p>\n

But before this case gets mired down in Federal Tort Claims and Westfall Act squabbles, let\u2019s take a moment to listen to all the weird echoes here, as is typical in Trumpland litigation. <\/p>\n

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<\/a> Trump\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> in attorney\u2019s fees for dragging half of DC into a Florida courtroom.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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. <\/p>\n

But perhaps the weaknesses in the mayor\u2019s suit won\u2019t matter in the end. Habba famously failed to assert presidential immunity in timely fashion<\/a> on behalf of Trump, thereby waiving the defense. If she represents herself the way she represented the president, well \u2026 the feds could be cutting a very big check!<\/p>\n

Baraka v. Habba<\/a> [Docket via Court Listener]<\/p>\n

\n

Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0substack<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019s acting US Attorney Alina dropped the claim just two weeks later \u201cfor the sake of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":121580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-121579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/alina-habba-GettyImages-2206684952-PhBnU4.jpeg?fit=1024%2C683&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}