The Trump administration has defended every interaction between law enforcement and Democrats, and dismissed Padilla’s action in Los Angeles as an “immature, theater-kid stunt.” Republicans have taken the same approach, scoffing when Democrats say that the treatment of elected officials should worry anybody else.
“No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences,” DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement on Lander’s arrest.
That phrase — “no one is above the law” — has become a popular GOP response to Democrats’ arrests. It’s become a way for the party to attack the opposition’s behavior and remind Democrats of how they endorsed prosecutions of Trump over campaign finance violations and his attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
After charging McIver last month, New Jersey US Attorney Alina Habba said that “no one is above the law, politicians or otherwise.” After Padilla’s arrest, and after Democrats shared images and video of it in a House Oversight hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told reporters that the senator looked “aggressive” on camera, and that “no one is above the law.”
The McIver incident, which Democrats may have thought could provoke backlash to Trump, set the tone.All Democrats defended McIver, and Baraka’s opponents in the June 10 gubernatorial primary defended him. Jack Ciattarelli, who won the GOP’s nomination with support from Trump, said that the Democrats were defending lawlessness.
“Let me remind you about one ‘right’ that NOBODY has — let alone a Member of Congress — and that’s the right to assault a law enforcement officer who was simply trying to do their job,” Ciattarelli wrote on X, in response to Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., who defeated Baraka in the primary.
(On Tuesday, Sherrill went after Ciattarelli for saying that a governor should “work in partnership with the president,” when asked what he’d do if Trump violated the Constitution.)
In New York, Republicans rolled their eyes at Lander and his party. City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino shared a post from a parody account, “Brad Pander,” and said he’d been “obstructing federal officers.” The New York Young Republicans Club stamped a message on a photo of Lander being detained: “No One is Above the Law, Including Brad Lander.”
