US Senator Taken to Ground and Handcuffed [Updated]
The crime: trying to ask DHS Secretary Noem a question at a press conference in a federal building.
Via NBC News: Sen. Alex Padilla is forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s news conference in Los Angeles.
Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., was forcibly removed from a news conference in Los Angeles on Thursday after he tried to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a news conference related to immigration.
“I am Sen. Alex Padilla. I have questions for the secretary,” Padilla said to Noem, which prompted several men dressed in plain clothes to physically push him out of the room. A top FBI official later saidbureau personnel and Secret Service agents were involved in the senator’s removal.
Padilla’s office shared a video of the incident with NBC News. The video shows Padilla being taken into a hallway outside and pushed face forward onto the ground as officers with FBI-identifying vests told the senator to put his hands behind his back. The officers then handcuffed him.
Padilla has been in the Senate since 2021, and prior to that, was the Secretary of State, a state Senator, and a member of the LA City Council, including being its president. He has been active in politics since 1999. He was in the Federal Building in Los Angeles. While it is reasonable, perhaps, that any one person in the room did not know who he was, it strikes me as unlikely that no one in the room knew who he was.
Anyone in the room had to have gone through security. While I understand the need to be vigilant, the notion that it was necessary and appropriate for him to be treated in this way was simply unacceptable, but it speaks to the nature of the current administration and the kind of regime they are attempting to construct.
Speaking to reporters later Thursday, Padilla said he was receiving a briefing from military officials when he learned Noem was in the same building and decided to join her briefing.
“I was there peacefully,” he said. “At one point, I had a question, and so I began to ask a question. I was almost immediately forcibly removed from the room, I was forced to the ground, and I was handcuffed.”
Here’s one of the videos, which is the only one I have seen that shows what happened in the hallway.
Again, this was the Federal Building in Los Angeles. There is no way this was necessary.
I have been thinking about the easiest way to explain and identify authoritarianism, and it comes down to this: the government asserts or orders, and it expects compliance. The absence of compliance leads to the use of force.
You will obey, and if you don’t, we will make you. It isn’t about rights or justice or legality. It is about WE are in charge and YOU will obey.
Secondary to all of that, but still important, is Noem’s unwillingness to answer questions. This administration doesn’t think they are accountable and only have to talk to their supporters.
That’s not democracy.
Here is Padilla’s statement.
He’s right.
See also his video statement via the NBC News link.
Some Updates.
First, as best I can tell, Senator Padilla has a field office in the building in question. This would greatly diminish the odds of his not being recognized. I base this on a Google search for his LA field office, which corresponds with the Federal Building downtown. But since I cannot 100% corroborate at this time, I’m going with “as best I can tell.”
Second, there’s this. This certainly makes it essentially impossible that they didn’t know who he was.
Third, this belongs in the “both sides” hall of fame.
The worst you can accuse Padilla of was grandstanding around cameras and a political opponent in service of his constituents. You know, things politicians sometimes do.
What security did was haul a US Senator out of a room to stop him from speaking, and cuffing him.
As they say on Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the other.
Sending the National Guard and Marines signals that dissent is not allowed and will be met with force. Today’s mistreatment of Senator Padilla signals King Taco is not to be questioned, and neither are his minions.
Legislative branch has one true power: money. Use all means to shut it down until the executive branch comes to heel. No discussion, no negotiation, just surrender. No more worry about shutting government down. Just the exercise of whatever power you have.
Plus get your own security that follows you around and is authorized to carry.
Of course they roughed Padilla up outside the press conference room, likely in order to keep the ‘independent’ and ‘free press’ from easily recording the brownshirt festivities.
It sure like all the ‘Libtards’ who warned everyone repeatedly that Trump was going to rule as an authoritarian, and were subsequently dismissed as alarmists suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome …………………………….. > were right.
A few fun facts:
Victor Orban’s Hungary has never done anything like this.
Turkey’s Erdoğan has never done anything like this.
Venezuela’s Maduro has done this.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un has done this.
Russia’s Putin has done this.
Balarus’ Lukashenko has done this.
Fun times…
Time to worry yet? Still asking for a friend.
@EddieInCA:
Just in case Padilla should avoid windows.
This plays well with fascists and authoritarians, and according to many in the media, we have to much to learn from their wisdom.
@EddieInCA: Hey! You’re no longer in DR?
@Scott:
I consider the DR home now, but I kept my house in LA, and my condo in Atlanta. I flew back to LA a few days ago to help a dear friend who is an immigration attorney deal with the repercussions of several of her clients being disappeared. Today we found two of them; one who was detained in Los Angeles, and sent to Louisiana. His family and attorney’s hadn’t gotten any information from ICE or DHS for 11 days. One of them is here legally, under protected status, so my friend thinks she can get him back home. But it’s effed up that he got picked up at all. One of her clients was taken and detained while showing up for his FINAL CITIZENSHIP meeting. He’s been working towards this for 14 years, and how they’re threatening to send him back to Panama, despite an American wife and three sons born here. The other client of hers we found today is in the Federal detention center downtown, but ICE and DHS are refusing him access to his attorney. Several of us are helping her out – lots of calling, holding, waiting, passing into to people on the ground at the Federal building both downtown and in Westwood.
Most Americans have no idea what’s actually going on in these communities. But I’m hoping as it hits more businesses, especially in places like Nebraska, Arkansas, and Alabama, it will start to finally seep into the zeitgeist.
I’ll be back in the DR soon as I can. My wife and I will both be at the No Kings Solidarity Meetup (the local chapters are refusing to call them “Protests”) on Saturday. We’ll be at the one in Hollywood.
This Trumpian chaos and drama why Trump’s own VP once called him “America’s Hitler.” Because — aside from being a miscreant and Epstein-bestie pervert who publicly sexualized his own daughter — Trump and his MAGA brownshirts are anti-American thugs, criminals, and de facto fascists.
Trump and his supporters are traitors to the Constitution, the rule of law and basic decency. Vile man supported by frauds and cowards — and surrounded by hateful, evil scum like Stephen Miller (and incompetent, unqualified drunks and druggies). A historic embarrassment for the USA.
@EddieInCA:
Be careful out there, please.
Cilliza… WTF!
Far more concerning than the treatment of Padilla was what Noem had to say about the regime’s intentions:
This is straightforward police state dictatorship, purporting to oust with force democratically elected officials because they are defying the rule of the regime. Using ridiculous excuses like “liberating the city” is eerily reminiscent of the Alice-in-Wonderland language of past totalitarian states.
Very similar take from Jamelle Bouie
https://youtu.be/ULdUsHB-7VE?feature=shared
Let’s remember that at that press conference Noem said that they were there to stay and that they were going to liberate California and Los Angeles from the “socialists” that had taken over.
Yes, Alex Padilla. I have questions too. I would make a scene too. WTF.
You can only expect me to obey the law if you do so also. If you are not bound by law, Kristi Noem, then neither am I, or anyone else in this country.
I am wondering now if I should start refusing to pay my (considerable) federal estimated tax. Can I put it in escrow? If they can withhold funds appropriated by an Act of Congress, why can’t I withhold my taxes?
Chris Cillizza, 1955:
Reflexive bothsidesism is a mental illness.
@Scott F.: “Cilliza… WTF!”
‘Both sides do it’ is pro-fash.