2026-06-24T17:12:47.792Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/lamonica-mciver-argue-assault-charges-thrown-out
国会议员的法律保护是否同样适用于被控袭击联邦官员的情况？周三，三名联邦法官在针对民主党众议员拉莫妮卡·麦基弗的案件审理中，就这一问题展开了近两小时的讨论。
特拉华州威尔明顿的法官团提出的首批问题之一是，国会议员在履行立法职责期间，如果“偶遇一名少女并对其实施猥亵”，是否仍会受到保护。
“这不就和我假设的这个案子一样站不住脚吗？”由唐纳德·特朗普总统在首届任期内提名的斯特凡诺斯·比巴斯法官在周三的听证会上向麦基弗的律师问道。
2025年，麦基弗被控在访问新泽西州一处移民拘留设施期间袭击一名官员。当时，警方在该设施外逮捕了纽瓦克市长拉斯·巴拉卡，随后警方迅速撤销了这一逮捕令。
检方指控，麦基弗用前臂撞击一名警员，并试图控制另一名警员，同时在试图返回设施时用前臂推搡一名警员。
对麦基弗的起诉书并未指控任何警员在事件中受伤。
麦基弗的律师保罗·菲什曼表示，这位新泽西州议员当时正在履行对该设施的立法监督职责，该设施近期已成为抗议活动以及执法人员与抗议者之间暴力冲突的温床。
菲什曼辩称，法官们应“整体看待此次实地考察”，并补充说，麦基弗和另外两名国会议员在巴拉卡被捕期间前往设施外，“目的是监督移民海关执法局和国土安全部”。
美国宪法中的言论与辩论条款通常保护国会议员，使其不因履行职责范围内的行为而被起诉。
“作为政府的批评者，”菲什曼说，这正是该条款旨在保护的内容。“他们之所以针对一名国会议员，是因为她与政府政见不合。”
“使用武力绝不可能受到言论与辩论条款的保护，”美国司法部律师马克·科因周三反驳道，同时他也承认此案“绝非我可以掉以轻心的案件”。
第三巡回法院正在审理麦基弗的上诉，此前下级法院驳回了她以多项理由（包括国会豁免权和报复性起诉）驳回此案的申请，目前针对麦基弗的案件处于暂停状态。
当被问及菲什曼试图让法院考虑特朗普政府提起此案是否具有报复性时，科因予以反驳。
“我仍在履职，”科因说道，并补充称，如果如法官托马斯·安布罗所假设的那样，政府开始起诉大量议员，他将“尽我所能”确保此类情况不会发生。安布罗由前总统比尔·克林顿任命。
在反驳环节，菲什曼表示起诉决定并非由科因做出，而是来自司法部。“起诉报复特朗普政敌的决定并非在纽瓦克做出的，”菲什曼在谈及针对特朗普政敌的起诉时说道。
安布罗法官还质疑科因能否举出其他案例，证明议员在试图挤过人群时因推搡警员而被控袭击。
“这看起来算不上袭击，”安布罗在评价麦基弗面临的一项指控时说道。
科因承认此案并不寻常。
菲什曼告诉法官们，他“并非主张袭击属于立法行为”，而是强调当移民执法人员开始非法逮捕出现在设施内的巴拉卡时，麦基弗正在履行国会的监督职责。
“如果任何议员走进酒吧并殴打一名移民海关执法局警员，”菲什曼说，那将不会受到保护。
麦基弗对指控拒不认罪，这些罪名最高可判处17年监禁。
听证会结束后的新闻发布会上，已有数月身孕的麦基弗告诉记者，此案不过是特朗普在打击其政治对手。
“我 literally （字面意为‘确切地说’，此处指实实在在地）面临着美国总统和司法部试图将我送入17年监狱——这非常可怕，”她说。“这一切的核心是残忍。司法程序对他们来说就是折磨。”
Lawyers for Rep. LaMonica McIver force judges to weigh the limits of congressional immunity
2026-06-24T17:12:47.792Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/24/politics/lamonica-mciver-argue-assault-charges-thrown-out
Do the legal protections for members of Congress hold even if they’re charged with assaulting a federal officer? That’s the question three federal judges considered Wednesday for nearly two hours in the case against Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver.
One of the first questions asked by the panel of judges in Wilmington, Delaware, was whether a member of Congress, during their legislative duties, would be protected if he “comes across a teenage girl and gropes her.”
“Isn’t this as weak a case as I hypothesized?” Judge Stephanos Bibas, who President Donald Trump nominated in his first administration, asked McIver’s attorney during Wednesday’s hearing.
In 2025, McIver was charged with assaulting an officer during her visit to an immigration detention facility in New Jersey when officers began to arrest Newark Mayor Ras Baraka outside the facility — an arrest that officials quickly dropped.
Prosecutors allege that McIver slammed her forearm into one officer and tried to restrain another by grabbing him as well as using her forearms to push against an officer when she was trying to get back into the facility.
The indictment against McIver does not allege that any officers were injured during the incident.
McIver’s attorney, Paul Fishman, said the New Jersey congresswoman was doing her legislative duty of oversight at the facility, which has become a recent hotbed for protests and violent clashes between law enforcement and protestors.
Fishman argued that the judges should “look at the field visit as a whole,” adding that the reason McIver and two other members of congress went outside the facility during Baraka’s arrest “was oversight” of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.
The Speech and Debate clause in the Constitution generally protects members of Congress from prosecution for actions that fall within their duties.
“Being a critic of the administration,” Fishman said, is what the clause was designed to protect. “They are picking on someone who is a member of Congress” because she disagrees with the administration, Fishman said.
“Use of physical force is never, never covered by the Speech and Debate clause,” attorney for the Justice Department Mark Coyne shot back Wednesday, while acknowledging the case was “certainly not something I’m taking lightly.”
The case against McIver is on pause while the Third Circuit considers her appeal of a lower court ruling that rejected her efforts to toss the case on several issues, including congressional protections and vindictive prosecution.
When asked about Fishman’s effort to have the court consider the issue of whether the case was brought vindictively by the Trump administration, Coyne pushed back.
“I’m still here,” Coyne said, adding that if the administration started to charge a bevy of lawmakers, a hypothetical posed by Judge Thomas Ambro, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, Coyne would do “everything in my power” to ensure that would not happen.
On rebuttal, Fishman said the decision to prosecute was not Coyne’s but came from the Justice Department. “They are not made in Newark,” Fishman said of the decision to prosecute enemies of Trump.
Judge Ambro also questioned if Coyne could point to any other case where a lawmaker was charged with pushing against an officer as they were trying to make their way through a scrum.
“That doesn’t seem like assault,” Ambro said of one of the charges McIver faces.
Coyne conceded the case was not normal.
Fishman told the judges he was “not arguing that an assault is a legislative act” but rather that McIver was doing her congressional duties of oversight when immigration agents began to unlawfully arrest Baraka for his presence in the facility.
“If any member walks into a bar and decks an ICE officer,” Fishman said, that would not be protected.
McIver has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum of 17 years in prison.
During a press conference following the hearing, McIver, several months pregnant, told reporters the case was merely Trump going after his political enemies.
“I have literally the president of the United States and the Department of Justice trying to send me to jail for 17 years — that’s very frightening,” she said. “The point of it all is cruelty. The process is the pain for them.”
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