Trump asks Sessions to look into prosecuting Oakland mayor who warned about ICE raid

President Trump asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday to consider prosecuting the Democratic mayor of Oakland, Calif., after she warned hundreds of immigrants about an impending federal enforcement raid in February. 

The president said Mayor Libby Schaaf’s decision to warn her constituents ahead of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid amounted to “obstruction of justice.” 

The raid was expected to target more than 1,000 immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, but only resulted in the arrests of about 200 people.

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“They all fled, or most of them fled. The whole operation took a long time to put together,” Trump said during a White House roundtable discussion with political leaders and law enforcement officials from California.

The discussion also included Sessions, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, acting head of ICE Thomas Homan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)

“You talk about obstruction of justice — I would recommend that you look into obstruction of justice for the mayor of Oakland, California, Jeff,” the president continued. “She advises thousand people … ‘Get out of here, the law enforcement’s coming.’ And you worked on that long and hard and you got there and there were very few people there.”

“Perhaps the Department of Justice can look into that, with respect to the mayor, because it’s a big deal out there, and a lot of people are very angry about what happened,” Trump added.

Though the president suggested Schaaf was guilty of obstruction of justice back in April for interfering with the raid, Trump’s comment Wednesday marks the first time he has called upon a top federal official to consider legal action against her.