Dems demand DHS chief Noem testify after agents detain lawmaker's staffer

WASHINGTON (CN) — Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday demanded that the panel’s Republican majority force Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to testify about a recent incident during which federal agents briefly detained a staffer for New York Representative Jerry Nadler.

Lawmakers positioned the confrontation as part of a broader intimidation campaign by the Donald Trump administration, which they argued threatens constitutional separation of powers.

“These types of intimidation tactics are completely unwarranted and cannot be tolerated,” Nadler and Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin told House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan in a letter Tuesday. “We call on you, as chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary, to condemn this aggressive affront to the separation of powers and the safety of members of Congress, our staff, and our constituents.”

The incident, which occurred last week at Nadler’s New York district office, was captured in a short video clip posted to social media. The video shows federal agents with a dog handcuffing one staffer while another attempted to keep an officer from walking further into the office.

“I’m a federal officer, and we’re checking on something,” the Homeland Security agent can be heard telling Nadler’s staff. In the background, another agent can be heard telling the detained staffer — who is crying — to “stop resisting.”

The Homeland Security Department has said that the staffer was eventually released “without further incident” and that she was not charged.

The agency told CNN that agents were responding to protest activity at an immigration court, which shares space with Nadler’s field office. In the video clip, an officer accuses staff of “harboring rioters.” A source with knowledge of the incident confirmed those reports to Courthouse News.

Nadler on Monday told Jordan that the confrontation “demonstrates a deeply troubling disregard for proper legal boundaries.”

And the Democrats argued that the incident was part of a broader pattern in which the Trump administration and the Homeland Security Department have used “unlawful, chaotic and reckless tactics” to “threaten and intimidate” people, including members of Congress.

The Justice Department last month announced assault charges against New Jersey Representative LaMonica McIver, who was involved in a dust-up with federal agents as she and other Democratic lawmakers arrived for a tour of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in New Jersey. Democrats have vowed to respond to those charges.

Authorities have also separately charged a Wisconsin judge, who federal prosecutors have said concealed a person wanted by immigration enforcement officers in her office and allowed him to leave the courthouse through a non-public exit. The jurist, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan, has pleaded not guilty.

Nadler and Raskin demanded Tuesday that Noem come before the Judiciary Committee to testify about last week’s incident at the district office and what they said were her agency’s “irresponsible and dangerous actions.”

“The time is now to halt the use of these illegitimate tactics and to ensure that DHS complies with the law and with the norms of common human decency,” they wrote.

In a statement posted to X, Raskin said that Congress needed to figure out who was responsible for federal agents entering Nadler’s office and that they should be held accountable.

“This outrageous violation of the work of Congressman Nadler’s district office and frightful mistreatment of his staff cannot stand,” he said.

A spokesperson for Jordan’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. It’s unlikely that the Republican-led Judiciary Committee would agree to schedule a hearing with Noem.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who was arrested last month during the scuffle outside the ICE detention facility, sued Acting U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba for “false arrest and malicious prosecution” as well as defamation. The Justice Department initially charged the Democratic mayor with trespassing but later dropped its case.

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