On Tuesday, Oct 21st, federal agents executed a joint raid with ICE in New York’s City Chinatown district. The raid drew crowds of New Yorkers to “protest” during the action, leading to agent/protestor confrontations. Representative Dan Goldman (D-NY) is leading, once again, the charge to enforce state laws concerning federal agents and protect individuals against illegal ICE actions.
In his discussion with Jen, Rep. Goldman described the accelerating aggression of ICE since the spring, noting the various civil rights violated during these “missions.” Rep. Goldman and Jen also pull apart the reason behind this aggressive and Trump’s newest scam against Americans: demanding $230 million in restitution from his own DOJ.
Congressman Dan Goldman is represents New York’s 10th district and is an attorney by practice. Goldman served as lead counsel in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump and as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York.
The transcript below has been edited slightly for clarity.
Jen Rubin: Hi, this is Jen Rubin, Editor-in-Chief of The Contrarian. We’re delighted to have back with us Representative Dan Goldman from New York. Dan, welcome!
Dan Goldman: Thanks so much, Jen.
Jen Rubin: There was an ICE raid on Canal Street, which is in Lower Manhattan. What happened, and why did your office need to intervene?
Dan Goldman: Well, yesterday, late afternoon, dozens of ICE agents, including with armored vehicles, descended upon Canal Street, ostensibly looking for illegal immigrants that they wanted to arrest. Separate and apart for whatever the purpose of the operation was, and whatever the rationale was, it was such a massive, militarized show of force, that it caused terror and fear right with around the people there, and there are many, many people. It’s a very busy street. And the ICE officers—as we are now accustomed to—were masked and over-aggressive, using force in somewhat, excessive, you know, just excessive…aggression, I think, is the way to put it, to the point now where there were protesters who gathered around because of their tactics, and this is now becoming a bigger and bigger problem.
We’ve seen it in Chicago, we’ve seen it in Portland, we’ve seen it in Los Angeles. To date in New York City, it’s really been isolated to the courthouses, but now we’re starting to see ice branch out into the streets during rush hour, at a terrible time for that kind of operation with armored vehicles. And then at the end of it, for some reason that we still don’t know, 4 U.S. citizens were arrested.
We have been told that they were arrested by Homeland Security Investigations, which would have jurisdiction to arrest U.S. citizens. ICE does not. But they were then held for 24 hours, almost 24 hours, and ultimately released after we inquired about what’s going on, and after we called a press conference.
Jen Rubin: What was the basis for the arrest? Have they been charged with anything?
Dan Goldman: So they were not charged with any crime. And I want to be very clear, it is, and I know this from my days as a federal prosecutor. It is a crime to obstruct or intervene in a law enforcement operation.
And you can arrest someone without a warrant at that time, and you can even keep them overnight. But you need to then go into court and show probable cause for why you did arrest them, and bring the charges to do so. The fact that they were released with no charges sort of brings up far more questions than answers, which is, well, what was the basis of the arrest, or was this just because these agents were annoyed that people were peacefully protesting and tried to incite and inflame violence or tensions. And so there’s a lot of answers that we still need.
Jen Rubin: What possible need was there for armored vehicles and this kind of firepower? If the arrests were made, and they weren’t in some kind of battle. What could possibly be the rationale other than simply to instill fear and to be disruptive?
Dan Goldman: Well, I have a theory about this, Jen, and part of it is to continue to terrorize and instill fear in immigrant communities, but broader, more communities than even that. And that is that they are building their case, so to speak, to call in the military. So, ICE and Department of Homeland Security are using their own militarized tactics and gear and armored trucks that, naturally has the effect of inciting passions, tension, and in some cases, we spoke to witnesses there who indicated that some of the law enforcement officers were initiating some of physical contact.
And so, what I believe is going on is that this is a pretext where the government is creating and escalating violence in order to then say, ‘oh, there’s violence on the streets of New York, we need to send in the military.’ And so, they are creating a problem that then they’re gonna say, oh, we have to solve with the military. And it is all a ruse, it is all pretextual, and I think it’s really important to call it out right now, before it happens, so that everybody understands why there is so much, disruption in New York City, it’s actually because of ICE, not because of New Yorkers.
Jen Rubin: And this was the same pattern we saw, frankly, in Los Angeles and in Chicago, this kind of overkill, this super aggressive action. Then they exaggerate the degree of violence and say, we can’t enforce the laws, and they send in the military. What can you do legally at this point to interrupt this? Certainly Congress, if you had Republican colleagues who are actually doing their job, could exercise oversight. Is there anything else that can be done at this stage, in response to this, over really violent, sort of police action?
Dan Goldman: Well, there are a couple different aspects to it, and you point out, of course, correctly, and it’s always worth repeating, that the House Republicans, the Senate Republicans, who are in the majority and control those bodies, have abdicated their role in ensuring that the administration is following the law. Plain and simple. They’re just completely rolled over and allowing the administration to do whatever it wants. So, we now are left with different ways of trying to deal with this.
Late last week, I wrote a letter to the NYPD commissioner asking her to prepare and train her officers to intervene and defuse situations when ICE is acting with excessive force and potentially unlawfully. If, for example, ICE is arresting U.S. citizens, or lawful permanent residents, that’s outside the scope of their authority. They are not permitted to do that. So they are just like any other citizen or any other individual in that city, subject to state laws. If they use violence to do that, then they are potentially subject to charges of battery, assault, or whatever else may be under, violation under state law.
And so, the NYPD and local law enforcement, their mission is to, of course, enforce the law, but also to protect the individuals in their city. And that can, in this instance, include over-aggressive, excessively antagonistic, and potentially violent federal law enforcement officers. I hope it doesn’t get to that, right? But the idea that, you know, the NYPD, which does not take any part in these civil immigration enforcement actions but would have to stand down, I think is wrong, and I think we’re going to need to see a little bit more presence of the NYPD to make sure that the proper New York laws are being followed.
Jen Rubin: So, just to be clear, the federal government is being so abusive and so aggressive and so militarized that local police may have to defend the people of New York against the federal government. That is the place that we’ve gotten to.
Dan Goldman: I think that the recourse that is, you know, really only available because the administration has no mechanism of accountability over its own officers, its own conduct. They have eliminated the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security as an example. That would ordinarily be a neutral form of accountability to make sure that the DHS is following the law. But there’s no accountability within the executive branch. The Republicans have provided no accountability from the legislative branch to conduct oversight and enforce the law. There are… there is recourse in courts if you want to file a lawsuit for a violation of law, abuse of power, excessive force outside the scope of your authority, but that, of course, takes a long time and is especially fact-specific. And, you know, requires… oftentimes requires money in order to actually do that. So, we’re left with very few options, and I think what we just have to start orienting ourselves to this is lawless behavior by ICE.
Jen Rubin: Yes.
Dan Goldman: And I’m not talking about the actual targets of who they’re arresting. Those people, and I know on Canal Street, there are a lot of counterfeit goods being sold, that it is illegal. And in fact, when I was a prosecutor, I did investigations into large rings of selling counterfeit goods. That is a problem. And so I’m not opining on the legitimacy of those individuals who they ostensibly were going after. What we’re talking about here is the militarized abuse of power, excessive force that is designed not just to arrest people, but to instill fear and terror in New Yorkers that has to stop. And the only way it’s going to stop is if there are some consequences to these actions.
Jen Rubin: Well, certainly if the Democrats wrest control of the Congress, there can be all kinds of measures of accountability, and frankly, most felonies have a 5-year statute of limitations, so if people are committing felonies now, there may be prosecutorial results down the road.
Let me switch gears a bit, to talk about, really an appalling scene. This president has done arguably worse things than this. But the site of the White House being ripped down with the bulldozers and the water being sprayed on the building, reminiscent of what the Pentagon looked like on 9-11, was really an appalling sight. We then learned that major donors and corporations that have business with the federal government are paying for this. What was your reaction as a prosecutor who used to investigate and punish corruption? This seems to be beyond anything we’ve ever seen before.
Dan Goldman: You know, it’s just another step in a long line of open and brazen corruption. But I think in many ways, what is happening at the east wing of the White House is a metaphor for what is happening to this country. Which is that Donald Trump, lies to the American people, then abuses his power, and far exceeds what he is allowed to do, and in this case, he’s destroying the East Wing. In other cases, across the board, he’s destroying our democracy and our government. There are laws that prevent him from doing this. And no changes or renovations to the White House has ever been paid with private money, and for good reason. Now, he doesn’t want to come to Congress to get approval for it. That’s what he would have to do to get funds appropriate… properly funds appropriated for it. He doesn’t want to abide by the preservation laws. He doesn’t want to go through the normal process. He wants to do it in the dead of night without any forewarning, so that he can build his massive gold-plated ballroom that will, no doubt be incredibly distasteful and out of whack with the rest of the White House. And he’s using private money, again. Literally, people are paying for his ballroom. And we know that he’s given them something back. They’re not doing this out of, you know, the goodness of their heart. And now what we saw today, even, with the Binance CEO getting a pardon after Binance invested in Trump’s family’s crypto business. It’s just brazen corruption. That is a quid pro quo. Someone gives the president and his family money. The president gives him a pardon. That is illegal. Now, he has immunity now because of the Supreme Court.
But it doesn’t mean that it’s not a blatant, blatant violation of law and completely corrupt. And we’re seeing it over and over. I mean, look at this, we have the East Wing, we have the Binance CEO, pardon, we have Trump demanding $230 million from his own Justice Department. Taxpayer funds, because he believes that he was falsely prosecuted, when of course, there’s no merit to that. He would have been convicted in both of those cases at trial, but he’s shaking down his own government. It’s his own appointees. It’s just unbelievable.
I… I’ve learned not to be surprised when Donald Trump does these things, as shocking as they are. But what I’m really surprised and disappointed about is that the Republicans in Congress continue to remain silent. And yesterday, Tom Tillis, Republican senator from North Carolina, who is not running again, has no election in his future. He claims that it’s bad optics for him to be asking for $230 million from the DOJ. Doesn’t… he’s on the Judiciary Committee, he’s very familiar with public corruption laws. Won’t even call out the obvious corruption.
Jen Rubin: Well, I would, just stress that we have been, not surprised, but shocked over and over again. And to reiterate, although Trump may be exempt, individuals who engage in bribery, who engage in quid pro quo, individuals who engage in criminal conflict of interest can be prosecuted in the future.
And it seems that Democrats should make that clear to them, as well as make clear the kind of oversight they’re going to get in the future. But, Dan, I am sure you never saw anything like this when you were a prosecutor. No one would have dared do this kind of stuff. But thank you for joining us, and keep up the good work. We depend upon you to keep watch.
Dan Goldman: Thanks, Jen. Great to be with you.
