Welcome to the 2026 InsiderNJ Year in Advance, looking ahead at the new year as Governor Phil Murphy departs and Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill prepares to assume office.

Another year, another unsettling sensation of teetering on the brink, with the country squeezed down to the size of a TV personality’s massive, little ego, surrounded by fawning fiddlers who most easily get on his good side by singing his praises.

It’s terribly sad that the country of Kit Carson, Geronimo, George Washington, John F. Kennedy and any number of other legitimate tough guys should have to listen to a whining gold paint can spewing narcissist like the guy in there now. What a disgrace.

So, as he tries to ramrod another federal budget injurious to New Jersey, tramples over Habeas Corpus in his ongoing effort to scapegoat the vulnerable and the weak and further alienates gullible enablers who put him in there, let’s get down to the business of 2026.

First things first.

Following the forced resignation of Trump’s U.S. Attorney for N.J., illegally installed after ignoring senatorial courtesy, the Third Circuit Panel could rectify another travesty by tossing those appalling 2025 charges brought by Trump’s Justice Department against U.S. Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10).

The charges against the Newark-based Congresswoman stem from a lawful oversight visit last May to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) detention center Delaney Hall. McIver faces up to 17 years in federal prison.

“From the beginning, I’ve fought back against this administration’s cruelty and attempts to silence dissent—this appeal is the next step in the fight. The Trump administration’s case is dangerous, baseless, and designed to stop me from doing my job. I won’t,” said McIver. “This appeal is for everyone who is standing up to this administration as they try to operate without oversight, silence the people who oppose them, and shut down those who protect the vulnerable. They want to make an example out of me, but I will not let them. I will not be bullied out of doing my job and protecting our communities. Not now, not ever.”

Since McIver’s fact-finding mission, 41-year-old Jean Wilson Brutus, died in Delaney Hall one day after federal authorities arrested him, according to ICE. The detainee entered ICE custody on Dec. 11 and died after experiencing a “medical emergency.”

“In an exclusive interview with NBC New York, Jean Wilson Brutus' cousin [said] Mr. Brutus didn't have any medical concerns before being taken into custody. ‘We haven’t had some kind of closure surrounding his death,’ Evans Belony told News 4's Axel Turcios. It's something Belony says he and his family are still trying to process. ‘He was like a loved one, that we all loved, he was like a brother.’"

We can immediately make right this dreadful and compounded breach of justice. That starts with the precise details of Mr. Brutus’ death, while the court rips up the preposterous case against the Congresswoman. In addition, let’s make certain United States Senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim undertake the constitutional exercise of their legal authority – as they did previously with the law-flouting Alina Habba - to oversee the President’s next choice for U.S. Attorney of New Jersey.

Regrettably, in January the Third Circuit did not shred McIver’s case.

But as the country plunges into more evidence of ICE overreach with the developing case in Minneapolis, we’re waiting for her full exoneration.

We’re also simultaneously diving with abandon into this year’s political action, including the formation of a new gubernatorial administration, local elections, and – best of all - numerous significant congressional contests, which will ultimately, in the general elections later this year, impact the shape and direction – and legal fitness and hopefully legal fortitude - of the country.

New Jersey played a substantial role last year, as we pointed out in the 2025 InsiderNJ Retrospective, and the people of the great Garden State stand poised once again to make a statement, informed by the rule of law, the Constitution, and the great ideas and ideals central to the United States of America.

See you on the trail, New Jersey.

Max Pizarro

Editor, InsiderNJ

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