Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
Jesus, he tore these people a new asshole. Good grief.
— Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, in comments caught on a hot mic, following Judge André Espinosa’s more than five-minute reprimand of Trump administration prosecutors from the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office over Alina Habba’s “embarrassing” choice to charge Baraka with trespassing, only to later retract those charges. “The hasty arrest of Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, followed swiftly by the dismissal of these trespassing charges a mere 13 days later, suggests a worrying misstep by your office,” Espinosa said. “An arrest, particularly of a public figure, is not a preliminary investigative tool. It is a severe action, carrying significant reputational and personal consequences, and it should only be undertaken after a thorough, dispassionate evaluation of credible evidence.”
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.