Bulwark Takes - Trump Prosecutor Wants to Lock Up New Jersey’s Governor

Episode Date: April 11, 2025

JVL and Will Sommer share their takes on Trump attorney-turned-acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba’s announcement of a criminal investigation into New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy on live TV. They talk about the FOXification of the justice system and the rise of cosplay law enforcement.

Now at Verizon, we're locking in low prices for three years, guaranteed, on MyPlan. And you can get a single line for just $45 a month when you switch and bring your phone. That's our best price ever on Unlimited Welcome, with autopay plus taxes and fees, guaranteed for three years. Because at Verizon, we got you. Visit your local DC Verizon store today. $20 monthly promo credits apply over 36 months with a new line on Unlimited Welcome. In times of congestion, Unlimited 5G and 4G LTE may be temporarily slower than other traffic. Domestic data roaming at 2G speeds. Price guarantee applies to then current base monthly rate. Additional terms and conditions

apply. Hello, everybody. This is JVL here with my bulwark colleague, Will Sommer. And we got breaking news from the across the river from me in New York City in New Jersey last night. Alina Haba, who is, I can't believe I have to say this, the interim U.S. attorney for the great state of New Jersey, she went on to Fox to make an important legal announcement last night that she is instructing her office to open criminal investigations against the New Jersey Governor, Chris Murphy, and the New Jersey Attorney General, Matt Plattkin. It's a little weird to announce the opening of criminal investigations on a cable news network and not by official press release. But here she is telling the world that she is criminally investigating

the governor and attorney general of the state in which she lives. We know that the governor has on his website currently do's and don'ts for his local state of law enforcement. Those do's and don'ts instruct them not to cooperate with illegal immigrants who have administrative warrants that have been issued by the court after due process

saying that they are no longer welcome here. They have gone through the court system. They are to be deported. It is instructing them to go against our federal rules, our executive orders. And I am unfortunately going to announce on your show tonight, Sean, and I want it to be a warning for everybody, that I have instructed my office today to open an investigation into Governor Murphy, to open an investigation

into Attorney General Plattkin, who has also instructed the state police not to assist any of our federal, and they list our federal agencies that are under my direction, the FBI, the DEA, all these individuals that are trying to clean up our streets in New Jersey, not to cooperate. That will no longer stand. Pam Bondi has made it clear, and so has our president, that we are to take all criminal, violent criminals and criminals out of this country and to completely enforce federal law. And anybody who does get in that way, in the way of what we are doing, which is not political,

it is simply against crime, will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment. And I will come after them hard. Those investigations will start immediately. Well, well, what do you think? Well, this is kind of a new Trumpian thing, isn't it? Sort of saying like we're launching an investigation as a way to sort of mess with someone. Just publicly saying that.

Like I think about Trump signing the executive orders to, you know, pursue someone like Chris Krebs this week. I mean, it's very bizarre, this idea that, you know, Alina Haba doesn't like how Governor Murphy there is running the, you know, the state interfacing with immigration officials. And so she says, well, I'm going to investigate him criminally for obstruction. Yes. Yes. Anybody who does get in that way, in the way of what we're doing, will be charged in the state of New Jersey for obstruction, for concealment, and I will come after them hard, hard. So, I mean, on the one hand, I guess we could all say, ha ha ha, How silly. How ridiculous. Look at these hypocrites doing actual lawfare after campaigning that they were going to depoliticize the lawfare. But on the other hand, like, I don't know, I'm pretty concerned about this.

Doesn't this seem like like the first step towards actually prosecuting people for political differences is opening investigations into them. Yeah. I mean, she says she's looking at criminal cases now against the governor and the attorney general of New Jersey over laws. I mean, the backstory here is that this is all over this New Jersey law that basically prevents local and state officials from cooperating really closely with federal immigration officials in terms of deportations. Now, this is a law that Phil Murphy says has been upheld by even Trump-appointed judges. But the reason we're hearing about this now is because it's been in the right-wing media. Breitbart was writing about it this week.

And so that appears to have been what set off Alina Haba in terms of this, like, launching a criminal investigation, such as it is. Yeah. So she seems to be like the right wing version of the Borg from Star Trek. She sort of encounters things in the right wing sphere and then integrates them into her personality. Here she is ramping up with the like Trump, which she's going to use, use the police state to go after her political enemies. Last week, she did Kristi Noem by doing cosplay. Did you see that? This was amazing. She showed up.

I forget where she was, but with a she was in our U.S. marshal's flak jacket and her ball cap pulled down over her eyes and combat boots and, you know, yoga pants. Well, this was the picture we all thought was a. I we had a big discussion about because it looked so unreal. This idea of, you know, Alina Haba in the flak jacket or what have you. And we thought it had to be fake, but it wasn't. Yeah. I mean, on the one hand, ridiculous. But again, on the other hand, like, I don't know, it somehow is working for Kristi Noem.

Is it going to work for this woman, too? I mean, she definitely I mean, this is kind of this this sort of meteoric rise of a Trump loyalist. I mean, this is someone who was a she wasoric rise of a Trump loyalist. I mean, this is someone who was a, she was a lawyer for Trump on some of his criminal cases. My sense was, was not particularly well regarded in terms of her actual lawyering, but she was very, she looks like someone who can go on Fox News and she did, she can go on Fox a lot. And so from that, she had this rise. And now, I mean, it's surreal that she's the U S attorney for New Jersey. I mean, this is a few months ago, she was, uh, on some, you know, right-wing talk show saying what a big fan she was of Andrew Tate, the accused human trafficker. Uh, and now she's,

you know, one of the top law enforcement officials in the country. Can we talk about the cosplay thing? So when, when did this become a thing in right wing circles? Did it start with Kristi Noem when she was governor? Is it part of the gun culture? Everyone just loves getting pictures with their guns and it morphed into this. Where did this come from? Maybe it comes from George W. Bush landing a fighter jet or being in the cockpit on a fighter jet as it was landing on an aircraft carrier. Is that where this dates to?

Or does it date to Mike Dukakis in the tank? Well, I mean, you know, as you pointed out, I mean, I think this kind of like this dressing up is something that sort of has been with us for a long time. But we're definitely it's definitely getting a renaissance in the Trump administration. I mean, I think Kristi Noem is sort of the leading avatar of it. I think she's out wearing cowboy hats at the border. You know, she's doing some like tough deportation raids. Just this week, she took the libs of TikTok lady along with her. They had ice jackets and everything and the badges.

She's definitely like the main face of it. I think even some people on the right are starting to say like, all right, you know, can we actually get some deportations done? But I think at the same time, I mean, as you said, I think this is spreading. Alina Haba, think about Pete Hegseth, whose entire job seems to be, you know, working out with the troops at various military bases. Yeah, I mean, he is basically like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know, running around doing photo ops where he does like jumping jacks and pushups with kids. Right. But with the the troops it's a weird level performance but i guess it isn't really unique i mean i think back to you're not an elvis guy i'm no i'm a little young i think i'm a little young too but he is part of the culture

it's not i did not experience elvis firsthand uh will not that old How old do you think I am? But Elvis loved cosplaying as law enforcement. He had all these sorts of honorary badges that he would wear and would write letters to Nixon. Boy, his correspondence with Nixon is wild. And would volunteer himself to go undercover and stuff. So it's not like this is new. It's a little weird for it to morph from the fringes into... The job of a U.S. attorney has historically been a basically anonymous job for people who are serious public servants.

And now we're even turning serious jobs for like sincere, genuine public servants into, you know, look, your job is just to make TikToks and get on Fox. Well, you know, it's funny you say that. I mean, just today. So in this week's issue of my newsletter, I talk about Dan Bongino trying to be a lot more forward facing in social media. But just today, as we're recording this on Friday, he says, well, we've now directed all heads of FBI field offices to get out there, do more podcast hits. Basically, he says this is not just about getting social media clout. You know, I'm barely paraphrasing here, but essentially he's saying we're trying to make all of our Washington or excuse me, all of our field office FBI leaders into sort of like regional social media personalities. I mean, was Madison Cawthorn a prophet when he like fired his legislative staff and hired a bunch of comms people and was like, if I'm not making news, then I'm not doing my job as a congressman. Well, I mean, we see that. I mean, you think about Nancy Mace, you think about all like,

who are the most seen as I think the most effective among Republicans, or at least the top fundraisers. It's often the ones who are out there the most. God love us. Will, what is Alina Haba running for? So she is a reasonably new character on the Trump show. She only really came in around 2022, I think, is where we first started seeing her. She's really proven to be very popular with the casting director for some reason. Who could say why? Probably because of her native acting talent. But she wouldn't be doing this stuff if she wasn't thinking of moving up the org chart.

What's her next step? It feels like she's running for something in New Jersey. Right. I feel like making her the U.S. attorney for New Jersey is so random. Like I she wasn't running for something. I feel like she'd be trying to get something else at the White House or something. But this feels to me like they're really like sort of lauding various credentials onto her to let her run for Senate or governor. Yeah, that's that's great. And I would say good luck to her winning as a Republican in New Jersey. But I don't know, man, like we live in such a crazy world that I,

you know, it's not likely to work. It's not the craziest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, I wouldn't rule it out, right? And maybe that's what all the photo ops are about as well. All right, Will Sommer, thanks for being with us. False Flag is his newsletter. Hit like, hit subscribe, stay with the channel. We will cover all of the crazy and God knows there's a lot of it.

Good luck, America.