Witness says agents entered her home without a warrant; legal witness calls the entry unlawful

A witness told members of the Oversight Committee Democrats that federal agents forced their way into her home without showing a judge-signed warrant and put her children at risk, and a legal witness testified the entry would have been unlawful.

The lawmaker presiding over the hearing described the witness's account as "really important testimony" and said the committee had obtained a short video of the incident to show what happened. In the clip, voices repeatedly demanded to "Show the warrant" and warned that children were present. The lawmaker said the footage was "hard to watch." (voices on the video said, "What warrant? Show the warrant. There's kids in this house.")

The committee identified the woman as Miss Gibson Brown, who said she had asked officers to show a warrant and that they did not produce a judge-signed warrant. The presiding lawmaker asked, "Is that correct?" and the witness answered, "Yes." When asked whether officers showed a valid warrant, the witness said, "No. They did not."

The committee also heard from Mr. Schwenk, introduced by the presiding lawmaker as a witness. Asked whether it would have been legal for officers to enter the home without a judge-signed warrant either before or after a recent memo from the prior administration, Mr. Schwenk replied, "No. The answer is it would not have been legal either before or after this memo came out for them to go into that home." He gave that legal opinion in the hearing room.

Throughout his questioning, the presiding lawmaker framed the issue as both a constitutional and safety concern, saying the incident showed what can happen when constitutional protections are ignored and that the government should try to "right that wrong." The lawmaker said the event amounted to an "attack on your own home" and apologized to the witness for her family's experience.

No formal vote or motion on remedies or policy changes was recorded during the portion of the hearing captured in the transcript. The presiding lawmaker concluded by thanking the witness and turning the hearing to a colleague.

The hearing transcript records the video clip as lasting roughly a minute and includes repeated calls from voices in the recording to "show the warrant" and to put weapons down because children were present. The committee's witnesses and questioning focused on whether the entry complied with constitutional protections and on whether a recent policy memo changed the legality of such entries.