JERSEY IS ‘WAKING UP’ TO THE TRUMP CRISIS, SAYS A.G

Platkin leads the charge, while some pols don’t seem to get it, yet

“I think the public is waking up to it, but we have been sleep-walking into a major constitutional crisis,” said Matt Platkin, the New Jersey attorney general. The Trump administration, he said, “has been doing things that are unprecedented and really scary. I’m concerned. You’d have to be crazy not to be.”

Strong words from perhaps the state’s most progressive and outspoken official. “But,” he added, noting that although the country is facing a severe test of its ability to defend its democracy, “it’s not too late.”

Platkin was speaking at a conference room on the seventh floor of University Hall at Montclair State University on Tuesday evening, an event sponsored by BlueWaveNJ. He appeared jointly, in Q&A format, with Paul Fishman, an attorney with Arnold & Porter and the former U.S. attorney for District of New Jersey from 2009 to 2017.

In just three years as New Jersey’s attorney general, Platkin, 39, has established himself as one of the state’s leading lights, emerging as perhaps New Jersey’s chief defender of civil rights, human rights, and the rule of law in face of an all-out assault by the Trump-Musk administration.

New Jersey doesn’t have many heroes. Its political system has long been riddled with bossism, and it seems continually to set new standards for blatant corruption. (Bob Menendez, we’re looking at you.) Too many of its politicians kowtow to the lily-white (and voter-rich) suburbs while neglecting the urban cores of Newark, Jersey City, Camden, Trenton, Paterson, and Atlantic City, and too many legislators respond more to county bosses than they do to their grassroots. Investigating and exposing all that is one of the chief missions of The New Jersey Democrat.

And while Platkin can’t fix everything, everywhere, all at once, he’s making a start.

He’s not been shy about inserting himself into the national resistance to Trump’s often illegal and unconstitutional actions, joining with other state attorneys general in suing the federal government, on actions from Trump’s scheme to overturn birthright citizenship to freezing desperately needed federal funds to wholesale layoffs and shutdowns of vital U.S. agencies.

“We fought a Civil War for the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” he said, at the Montclair University event, referring to his legal challenge to Trump’s attack on birthright citizenship. “We put these rights into the Constitution to protect people regardless of whoever’s in power.” But Trump, he said, along with Elon Musk and Stephen Miller, is overtly defying the rule of law, threatening to ignore judges’ rulings and to impeach them if they issue rulings he doesn’t like.

Platkin has shown extraordinary courage in standing up for, well, truth, justice, and the American way, in contrast to Governor Phil Murphy, who’s exhibited unwarranted deference to President Trump and an inexplicable readiness to pay tribute to south Jersey political boss George Norcross. Murphy did so even as Norcross was under indictment by Platkin, who’d accused Norcross of “racketeering” and running a “criminal enterprise.”

Example: last night, in a brief interview with The New Jersey Democrat, Platkin said that he disagreed with the judge who dismissed the indictment of Norcross last month, adding that his office is working on an appeal. Meanwhile, according to the NJ Globe’s David Wildstein, Governor Murphy has agreed to headline a May 12 fundraiser for Norcross’ super PAC, American Representatives Majority.

Last year, when then-candidate Andy Kim, running for U.S. Senate, mounted a legal challenge to New Jersey’s rigged ballot system, Platkin openly broke with Murphy. Platkin announced that, in his opinion, New Jersey’s ballot design system – which gave extraordinary power to county chairs to place their thumb on the voting system by highlighting favored candidates in primaries – was “unconstitutional.” It was a bombshell, on the eve of a major court case initiated by Kim – who, it happens, was running against the boss-endorsed Tammy Murphy, wife of the governor. Needless to say, Murphy, who appointed Platkin in 2022, wasn’t pleased. Tammy Murphy dropped out, and Kim was elected.

Then, in January 2025, Platkin announced the creation of a Justice Department-sponsored TRUST Commission, a 13-member body aimed at tackling corruption and malfeasance. Its members include top lawyers, former attorneys general and a state Supreme Court justice, and a leading union activist, along with Sue Altman, an aide to Kim who was herself a congressional candidate in 2024.

“New Jersey is known for many things: our shore, Taylor ham, Springsteen. And, unfortunately, a history of public corruption. As New Jersey’s attorney general, I have made rooting out corruption, in all its forms, a top priority.” wrote Platkin, in introducing the commission in January. “I know that, right now, too many in our state feel that the wealthy and well-connected play by a different set of rules. Corruption, when left unchecked, destroys the fundamental agreement between the government and the people we swear an oath to serve.… And too often, it has turned our state into a national punchline. But it does not have to be this way.”

On the hot-button issue of immigration, Platkin has stoutly defended the state’s Immigrant Trust Directive, which bars state and local law enforcement agencies, including sheriffs, from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. In the state legislature, senators and assembly members are pushing to codify and expand the directive through the Immigrant Trust Act, which would add the force of law to the directive and would prevent a future governor from undoing it. And Platkin has filed a lawsuit to block ICE’s plan to turn Newark’s Delaney Hall into a 1000-bed prison for migrants.

Platkin and Fishman explained that the attorney general of New Jersey – the only state with a Democratic-held A.G. position that is appointed, not elected, to protect the office from the political winds – is the most powerful attorney general post in the United States. “The reason why the authority is so broad is because of New Jersey’s legacy of corruption,” Platkin said, including political corruption, the mafia’s influence, and corporate corruption.

On Trump’s anti-constitutional assault, Platkin said he is going to continue to resist. “We’re gonna fight and we won’t back down,” he said. “But this will be decided by hundreds of millions of Americans. Do they care about constitutional government?”

Some New Jerseyans have suggested that Platkin would make a great governor, and at the Montclair event an audience member shouted, “Platkin for president!” But, said Platkin, “This is the greatest job I’ll ever have.”