Noticias

As the controversy over files related to sex predator Jeffrey Epstein continues to plague President Donald Trump’s administration, a new effort to make the Justice Department release the files has garnered the support of New Jersey’s entire Democratic House delegation.

Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican with an idiosyncratic streak, filed a discharge petition last night that, if it obtains 218 signatures, would circumvent House GOP leaders and force a full House vote on the release of the files. Eight of New Jersey’s House Democrats have already signed on; the ninth, Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair), hasn’t been back in Washington this week amid her campaign for governor, but her office said she plans to sign as well.

“The truth must come out,” Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) said of the petition.

So far, the petition also has four Republicans on board, two short of the number needed assuming every House Democrat signs. Top House Republicans and the Trump administration have both strongly pushed their members to oppose the petition.

One Republican who won’t be signing on is New Jersey Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis). Van Drew has been more willing than many of his GOP colleagues to push the Trump administration on the Epstein case and is a co-sponsor of the underlying bill at hand in the discharge petition, but he said that he wants the bill to go through the proper committee process and not vault straight to the House floor.

“I support maximum transparency, and we’ve got to get the information out for the sake of the victims, for the sake of the American people,” Van Drew said today. “However, this is a very, very sensitive issue, and it needs to be done in a proper way. I really support the bill, but it needs to go through the committee process.”

New Jersey’s other two Republican congressmen, Reps. Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) and Chris Smith (R-Manchester), have not signed the petition either, and seem unlikely to do so.

The petition is only one of many different efforts across Capitol Hill to get answers on Epstein, a financier who was convicted of sex trafficking in 2019 and died shortly afterwards, apparently by suicide. The House Oversight Committee is conducting an investigation into the case and released thousands of pages of records yesterday, and the House approved a symbolic measure today in support of the committee’s investigation.

For Massie and Democrats – and for survivors of Epstein’s abuse themselves – those efforts aren’t enough, however. At a press conference convened by Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) outside the Capitol today, many of the women who were abused by Epstein demanded that the government release every file it has, both for their own sake and for that of the country.

“This is nothing to do with politics. This is not a blue thing or a red thing – this is an everyone thing,” said Courtney Wild, a survivor who first met Epstein when she was 14. “We need transparency. It’s time for us to see behind the curtain.”

The post Effort to force release of Epstein files gains support from N.J. Dems appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

Esther Suarez, who stepped down last month after a decade as Hudson County executive, has joined one of the state’s most prestigious law firms.

Suarez, a former Superior Court Judge, will be a partner at Cleary Giacobbe Alfieri Jacobs, where she will chair the firm’s White Collar Defense and Corporate Investigations

“Prosecutor Suarez is one of the most well-respected and admired legal professionals in the state,” said State Sen. Joseph Lagana (D-Paramus), a principal partner.   The managing partner, Matthew Giacobbe, said that Suarez’s experience, expertise, and reputation make her an outstanding addition.

The first woman and first Hispanic to serve as Hudson County Prosecutor, Suarez ended a notable ten-year tenure as the first Hispanic to hold the post, and after leading efforts to modernize the technological capabilities of her office and reduce incidents of violent crime.

She is also a former Bergen County Counsel and Hoboken Corporation Counsel.

As a prosecutor, Suarez built an in-house DNA laboratory that enabled her investigators to work efficiently and eliminate a months-long backlog, along with a state-of-the-art cybersecurity lab to collect and forensically analyze data and digital footprints for complex investigations.  Suarez also opened a child advocacy center as a welcoming space for children who were victims or witnesses in investigations involving violent crime.

Suarez is also credited with opening the Hudson County Regional Collision Investigation Unit, the Hudson County Regional Arson Task Force, and the Hudson County Regional S.W.A.T.  She joined the state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force to protect vulnerable youth.

She has championed the establishment of a mental health court and backed criminal justice reform in support of a more equitable judicial system.

During her decade in law enforcement, Suarez made reducing violent crime a top priority in creating safe communities.  Hudson became part of the Violent Crime Initiative, which used federal funds to reduce violent crime in Jersey City.   The homicide unit under Suarez has achieved a 100% solve rate, surpassing the national average of 58%.

She also increased training for investigators and prosecutors and obtained federal grants to upgrade her office’s infrastructure and software.

Suarez spent five years as a Superior Court Judge before three Democratic state senators from Hudson County agreed upon her as their choice for prosecutor in 2015.  She succeeded Guy Gregory, who became acting prosecutor in 2012 after Edward DeFazio stepped down to become a Superior Court Judge.

After the 2020 election, Suarez was considered a leading candidate for U.S. Attorney.

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Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, the runner-up in June’s Democratic gubernatorial primary, endorsed Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-Montclair) for governor on Wednesday.

At the Zion Hill Baptist Church in Newark, Sherrill and Baraka were joined by state Democratic Chairman LeRoy Jones Jr., Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo Jr., and a small crowd of other Democratic officials from the county and state. Baraka, the primary’s most progressive candidate, said he still disagrees with Sherrill on some policies but said Sherrill still represents an opportunity for progress.

“The congresswoman represents our best chance, our best hope, our best opportunity, our best pathway to get to what we want to get to, to get to the place we need to be at,” the mayor told the crowd. 

Sherrill and Baraka met for some time before the event, where they discussed Black maternal health, the racial wealth gap, housing issues, and investments into Black and Brown businesses in New Jersey. He said neither Black voters nor the Democratic Party are monolithic, and politics is about ironing out the policy disagreements. 

Baraka specifically addressed an observation from Politico’s Matt Friedman about differences in policy preferences between the mayor and the congresswoman. For example, the two disagree on how much authority civilian complaint review boards should possess in reviewing allegations of police misconduct: Baraka has pushed to give the groups subpoena power, while Sherrill has said she’s against giving CCRBs that power. 

Baraka said disagreements like that can and should be worked out among Democrats, but also said focus must be placed on defeating Republicans, who he said would govern in a manner antithetical to how Democrats think the state should operate.

“I’d rather argue with the congresswoman about CCRBs than debate about whether the National Guard should be on our streets,” he said. “I would rather have a discourse about very specific issues that I think are important to me, than them thinking that the police should have the ability to do whatever they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want.”

When asked whether their conversations changed her mind on any policy issues, Sherrill said she wants to explore new ways of improving Black maternal health, but didn’t mention making any concessions or policy changes over the course of their discussions.

“He has big policy positions and has studied many of these issues as well, and so they’re really good conversations about some of the key ways in which we can move forward,” she said. 

GOP nominee and former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli hasn’t received the same support from the runner-up in his primary. Conservative radio host Bill Spadea returned to the microphone at 101.5 this week, and he made clear last week he believes Ciattarelli is “wrong for New Jersey.” Ciattarelli defeated Spadea by more than 40 percentage points. 

Baraka attacked Ciattarelli, arguing that while the Republican is confident and “smooth,” his record in the Legislature was poor. 

“How are you going to help Black businesses when you didn’t help them when you went to the Legislature in the first place?” Baraka said to cheers in the church basement. “How are you going to improve the minimum wage when you voted against increasing the minimum wage when you were a legislator in the first place?”

Turnout in Essex County, especially among Black voters, could be key for Democrats come November, making Baraka’s endorsement key. Baraka defeated Sherrill in Essex County, winning about 40% of the vote and nearly 38,000 votes. 

“We need to produce a huge plurality here in Essex County,” Essex County Executive Joe DiVincenzo Jr. said. “So those other counties, [if] somebody screws up, we have enough to win the election.”

“I know that the only way we lose this race in New Jersey is if Democrats don’t vote in New Jersey,” Sherrill said. “If we get divided, if we are not together, if we don’t stand up for the things we believe in, the communities we want to serve, that’s the only way we lose.”

Democrats, especially Black voters, have made clear they do not want to be left behind if Sherrill wins the election. On Wednesday, Baraka promised not to let his support be taken for granted.

“I pledge to get out here and fight and organize so that she can become a governor,” Baraka said. “And I pledge that when she is the governor, that she will not see the last of me.”

The post While acknowledging policy differences, Baraka endorses Sherrill appeared first on New Jersey Globe.

In the long history of the U.S. House of Representatives, only 28 members have been formally censured by a full vote of the House. Today, Republicans tried to make Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-Newark) into the 29th – and they failed.

A resolution supported by most House Republicans would have censured McIver for her conduct during a scuffle last spring at a Newark immigrant detention center, and removed her from her seat on the House Homeland Security Committee. But in something of a surprise, a Democratic effort to table and effectively kill the resolution succeeded, with five Republican House members voting in support and two voting “present.” (Every present Democrat supported the effort to table, which passed 215-207.)

The vote means that the resolution, spearheaded by Louisiana Republican Clay Higgins, won’t even come up for a proper vote at all, and McIver will remain uncensured and a member of all of her committees.

McIver was not immediately available to comment on the vote. In a statement yesterday, she accused Higgins of “seeking to punish [her] for doing what he and his caucus are too cowardly to do: conduct real oversight, stand up to this administration, and do [their] jobs.”

“If House Republicans think they can make me run scared, they’re wrong,” she said.

The Newark congresswoman, first elected just last year, became a Republican target after a May 9 incident at the Delaney Hall immigrant detention center, at which McIver and two of her House colleagues were conducting an oversight visit. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who had attempted to accompany the three congressmembers on the visit, was arrested for trespassing, setting off a brief scuffle involving McIver, federal immigration officers, and a group of assembled protesters.

The trespassing charges against Baraka were later dropped, but New Jersey’s controversial federal prosecutor, Alina Habba, instead charged McIver with assault, and later obtained an indictment from a grand jury. A trial has been set for November, but McIver has said the charges are politically motivated and asked a federal judge to dismiss the indictment.

Republicans in Congress, however, didn’t wait for the legal battle to come to a resolution before moving ahead with an effort to reprimand McIver. The resolution stated that McIver’s actions at Delaney Hall “do not reflect creditably on the House” and that her continued presence on the Homeland Security Committee, which has jurisdiction over immigrant detention facilities like Delaney Hall, “would represent a significant conflict of interest.”

“Censure is appropriate, and historically is well in line with what has happened,” Higgins said at a Homeland Security Committee meeting in June. “Generally, by this point, a member removes themselves from their committee involvement, certainly from a committee that has direct oversight in the arena wherein the charges are to be prosecuted.”

That was a viewpoint shared even by McIver’s three Republican colleagues in New Jersey, one of whom, Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis), chaired a subcommittee hearing in May that partially focused on criticizing McIver. “If you look at the video, she was pushing and shoving and physically involved, and that’s not acceptable,” Van Drew said prior to today’s vote.

Some congressional Republicans had floated even more extreme punishments such as expelling McIver from the House, but that was never a realistic possibility given that expulsion requires a two-thirds majority and Democrats – including, critically, House Democratic leadership – were staunchly opposed to any effort to punish her.

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