Newark mayor on arrest: 'What they've done is egregious and it's authoritarian'

Newark, N.J., Mayor Ras Baraka (D) on Tuesday called his arrest last month “egregious” and “authoritarian,” as he made the case that interim U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey Alina Habba acted politically in bringing the misdemeanor charge.

In an interview on MSNBC’s “The Beat with Ari Melber,” Baraka backed up his claim that the arrest was political by noting Habba, President Trump's former personal attorney, “started tweeting immediately as soon as I was arrested,” and by pointing to past statements she made about turning New Jersey “red.”

“I mean, all of that is not the purview of the law enforcement agencies of the state, the federal government, or the city, for that matter,” Baraka told Melber about Habba’s past comments.  

“We work together collectively to reduce violence and crime in our city. We don't campaign,” he continued. “When we ask the U.S. Attorney's Office to help us or the DOJ, we don't ask them who they voted for for president. What we do is present evidence and information and try to organize with them to help us make our lives better in our city.”

“I think what they've done is egregious and it's authoritarian. And it needs to be pushed back against,” Baraka added.

The interview was the mayor’s first since filing a lawsuit earlier Tuesday against Habba in her personal capacity over his arrest last month outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility he was visiting with three Democratic members of Congress.  

The lawsuit includes claims of false arrest, malicious prosecution and defamation, and accuses Habba of acting as a “political operative, outside of any function intimately related to the judicial process.”

The suit also names Ricky Patel, the Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge in Newark, in his personal capacity.

Baraka was charged with a single misdemeanor trespassing charge last month after accompanying three members of the New Jersey congressional delegation — Bonnie Watson Coleman (D), Rob Menendez (D) and LaMonica McIver (D) — to the Delaney Hall ICE detention center in Newark.

Habba’s office later moved to dismiss the count after charging McIver with assaulting law enforcement while at the facility. But Baraka alleged in the lawsuit that the arrest was baseless and targeted.

In the interview, Baraka argued the way he was treated after his arrest was not normal, especially for a misdemeanor charge, for which people generally receive summons by mail, Baraka said.

“I was cuffed, fingerprinted, took pictures of, twice — once there and once in court for a class C misdemeanor — which you send summons to people for. You don't lock them up and take their fingerprints,” he told Melber.

“They said the charges are too minor to have a preliminary hearing,” he added. “So if it’s too minor to have a preliminary hearing, why are you fingerprinting me and taking pictures of me and interrogating me in a room? And why are you doing it twice?”

Baraka also noted that his family was there during his arrest, describing the incident as “humiliating.”

“When I was arrested, my mother was outside in house shoes in the rain, you know? And they don't see any of this. This is my family, my community who has to endure this. And they didn't even apologize for it,” Baraka added.