Federal authorities have arrested the man accused of assaulting Congressman Lee Zeldin.
According to Fox News, David Jakubonis was arrested earlier on Saturday afternoon. The arrest was announced by the office of Trini E. Ross, the Biden-appointed United States attorney for the Western District of New York.
Jakubonis is scheduled to be presented before U.S. magistrate judge Marion W. Payson later this afternoon. As I outlined in my earlier post today, the obvious charge would be assault on a federal officer. Though he is the Republican candidate for governor, the highest state office, Zeldin is currently a U.S. representative. Members of Congress are covered under laws criminalizing assaults against federal officials.
That said, the criminal complaint is not yet public and the charge does not appear to have been announced yet.
It is not clear why it took two days for the federal government to respond to a violent attack on a member of Congress when the attack was intensely publicized and, as a result of New York law, the (very) apparent assailant was quickly released and remained at large and dangerous. Nevertheless, this is the right move and I applaud the Biden Justice Department for making it — and President Biden for condemning the attack and clearly asserting that “violence has absolutely no place in our society or our politics.” That assertion cannot be repeated often enough, and it should be enforced without hesitation, ambiguity, or discrimination.