This weekend, the Sunday Star-Ledger of New Jersey published a profile of U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ-09) and his persistent criticisms of Donald Trump’s corruption, criminality, and abuses. The article also highlights Pascrell taking on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of the Treasury Steve Mnuchin, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, and other members of the Trump administration.

The full piece can be viewed here, the text of which is below:

Feisty congressman, 83, takes on President in Trump’s arena: Twitter

By Jonathan Salant | The Sunday Star-Ledger – Sept. 06, 2020

Rep. Bill Pascrell Jr. was 16 years old when his uncle Pat Mone, a Paterson ward leader, took him to his first political event.

“Ten minutes into the event, a chair goes flying by my head,” Pascrell recalled. “There were fights here, there were fights there. And I said to myself, ’I might like this.’‘

More than six decades later, Pascrell, a 12-term Democratic congressman, still likes a good fight.

And his prime target the last four years has been none other than President Donald Trump, another guy not known for mincing words.

While bashing Trump is not unusual among Democrats, especially in this election year, few do with the consistency — and Jersey directness — as Bill Pascrell. And while he’s not throwing chairs, he attacks with Trump’s own weapon of choice: Twitter.

Pascrell, 83, has called Trump a “lowlife” and “beneath contempt“ and blamed him and his “soulless goons” for “countless dead Americans” due to the coronavirus. Last month, he demanded the state attorney general pursue “civil and criminal charges” against Trump and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy for “subverting our Jersey elections” in the vote-by-mail controversy.

Other tweets called Attorney General William Barr “a lying disgrace whose word isn’t worth a nickel,” who should be impeached and disbarred “for turning the Department of Justice into Trump’s personal law firm.” Another one called Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a “cowardly chief diplomat” who “has probably done more damage to our international reputation than any of his predecessors.”

He kept up the barrage Friday, following reports that the president allegedly had disparaged members of the U.S. Armed Services who were killed in combat with a tweet: “Has a single republican in Congress unequivocally condemned lowlife trump’s smear of our soldiers? Does a single one of them have the courage to stand up for our heroes and our country?”

Pascrell, the grandson of Italian immigrants who says he gave up a shot at professional baseball because his parents wanted him to continue his education, relishes his role as designated hitter against Trump. He makes no apologies for being so blunt.

“I walked the streets of Paterson, New Jersey,” he told NJ Advance Media. “Every day when you’re on the streets of Paterson, you have to prove yourself. That’s never left me. I have to say what I believe. I tell you what I think. I don’t want to water the wine.”

Of course, those tweets haven’t gone over well with the Trump campaign.

“It’s no surprise that President Trump and his administration are the target of Congressman Pascrell’s baseless attacks,” campaign spokeswoman Courtney Parella said. “With 24 years in office, he is the very definition of the political swamp the president is working to eliminate.”

And National Republican Congressional Committee Michael McAdams said the shots showed that “Trump Derangement Syndrome is real and Bill Pascrell is suffering from it.”

Among House Democrats, no one is surprised when Pascrell lets loose.

“The joy of Bill Pascrell is you never walked away from Bill Pascrell saying he was undecided,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that Pascrell sits on.

“He is what he is,” agreed former Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass. “Some people perceive that as being too sharp-elbowed. I perceive it as being honest.”

What has made Pascrell’s elbows even sharper is his concern that the Trump administration is denigrating American institutions like Congress as the president and his aides withhold information, refuse to testify when asked, or flat-out lie.

“This is a very personal thing: I believe in the institution of the Congress,” Pascrell said. “I believe in the branch of government that I chose to run for. And anybody who doesn’t, I think, has no concept of what democracy is all about.”

Pascrell, D-9th Dist., hasn’t reserved his vitriol just for Trump. He once asked Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., to step outside during a particularly contentious Ways and Means Committee debate over the 2017 Republican tax law.

The issue was whether victims of Hurricane Sandy should get the same tax breaks that House Republicans provided earlier to residents of southern states hammered by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria. Nunes objected to Pascrell’s amendment.

“You have a responsibility to everybody, Mr. Nunes, me included, and you have discriminated against me because I’m from New Jersey,” Pascrell thundered. “We’ll settle it outside but we’ll settle it right here now.”

Nunes, one of Trump’s most ardent defenders on Capitol Hill, won support from the chairman at the time, Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, one of the states that already had the tax relief Pascrell sought for Sandy victims.

To this day, Brady says he’s not enamored of Pascrell’s antics.

“I don’t think there’s a role for some of this hateful speech and very aggressive accusations against other members of Congress,” Brady said. Even so, he said, “I do believe Bill Pascrell is a very passionate lawmaker. He defends New Jersey and his community at every step.”

Pascrell also led the so-far unsuccessful fight to force Trump to release his personal income tax returns. In March, he rebuked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin for refusing to give up the returns despite the requirements of a 1924 federal law.

“By refusing to turn over Donald Trump’s business and personal tax returns to this committee, I think you’re breaking the law,” Pascrell, D-9th Dist., told Mnuchin at a Ways and Means hearing.

“It says, ‘Shall,’ it doesn’t say, ‘Might,’” Pascrell continued. “The only thing you suffer is smug rhetoric and staggering lies.”

“I find it offensive that you’re telling me that I’m breaking the law and staggering lies,” Mnuchin shot back. “That’s your interpretation of the law. I’m relying on legal counsel on what is our interpretation of the law. In all due respect, I am not breaking the law.”

The House sued to get the returns, and received a boost in July when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Trump’s claims of absolute immunity from investigations.

The fact that Pascrell even knew about the 1924 law, enacted in response to the Teapot Dome scandal, shows how meticulous he is, said Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y.

“He’s always taking notes, he’s always writing, he’s always reading,” Higgins said.

Pascrell, who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Fordham University, spent 12 years as a high school teacher. He served in the state Assembly and as Paterson mayor before winning his first House term a quarter century ago. Recovered from heart bypass surgery in July, he heavily is favored to win re-election this fall.

“When Bill Pascrell comes into your life, you know it,” Higgins said. “He has the energy of rambunctious kid, the idealism of a young college student and the wisdom of a seasoned veteran. He is a force of nature.”

While in Washington, Pascrell and Capuano would eat dinner with as many as a dozen of their colleagues after work. A solo lawmaker of either party entering the same restaurant invariably received a wave and an invitation to join their table.

“He’s got a lot of friends on both sides of the aisle,” said Pascrell’s son, Bill Pascrell III. “He believes that’s the way you build relationships and get things done.”

One of his friends on the other side is Republican Rep. Peter King of New York.

“Bill is an old school politician,” King said. “Democrats and Republicans want every bill to be partisan. Bill will try to get you on Democratic legislation to show it’s bipartisan. He’s willing to share the glory and share the power.”

While his bluntness may play well with constituents and colleagues, Pascrell acknowledges it does not endear him to party leaders, who increasingly expect members to fall in line.

“I’d like to be in leadership but I know that maybe I don’t belong there,” he said.

Still, he said he doesn’t need a title to make an impact, citing as an example former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., who played a major role in overhauling the tax code in 1986.

“You don’t have to have an official position,” Pascrell said. “Remember Bill Bradley, my favorite basketball player and senator? He used to say, ’Always watch the guy without the ball.’”

Without a formal leadership position, Pascrell has pushed for legislation to screen student athletes for traumatic brain injury, taking up the cause after Montclair High School football player Ryne Dougherty died in 2008 after being cleared to play despite suffering a concussion weeks earlier.

Pascrell also advocated similar screening screening for soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan and championed programs to send federal funds to local police and fire departments.

“When I came to the Congress, I made a commitment to the firemen and policemen,” Pascrell said. “I saw my friend who was a fireman die in a fire in Paterson when I was the mayor. I saw them carry the body out the next day.”

As police practices came under unprecedented scrutiny following the killings of Black residents, Pascrell’s support from law enforcement became an issue in his recent primary campaign. He received $43,160 in police and fire political action committee donations since 1994, more than any other member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

“Look at his policies and his sources of funding,” said Zina Spezakis, a clean energy executive, who challenged Pascrell in the July 7 primary with the support of progressive groups that backed Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential race. “He’s been, frankly, a centrist Democrat.”

She suggested Pascrell’s tweet barrage was a response to criticism from the left.

“Tweets like that get people angry but there’s rarely a solution attached with that,” she said. “Perhaps it is a reaction to the progressive movement in New Jersey.”

Pascrell, who last year scored 95% on the liberal Americans for Democratic Action legislative scorecard and received a rating of zero from the American Conservative Union, rejected that characterization. “I think my record is pretty progressive,” he said.

He broke with the police unions in June and voted for legislation banning chokeholds, stopping racial profiling and reducing immunity for law enforcement officers following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Pascrell said that ongoing conversations on racial justice with the late U.S. representative and civil rights icon John Lewis influenced his vote.

“The person who’s had more influence on me than anybody in modern history is John Lewis,” Pascrell said. “He was my friend. And I miss him dearly.”

For the past two years, Pascrell enjoys the power that comes with being in the majority.

He is working to keep the Democrats in control, including sending $100,000 from his campaign account to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and paying special attention to the newcomers from New Jersey.

When Rep. Mikie Sherrill, D-11th Dist., first ran in 2018, Pascrell approached Neal to donate to her campaign.

“I’m sure it was something that was curt: ’You need to help her.’” recalled Neal, who would give $7,000 from his leadership PAC. “He’s not strong on nuance.”

Nor is Pascrell strong on diplomacy, Capuano said.

“Bill and I used to joke, ‘You’d only make us ambassadors to a country you’d want to go to war with,’” he said.