Political Glance
Video recorded by witnesses to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday shows that the 37-year-old registered nurse was holding a phone, not a gun, when he was tackled and shot, directly contradicting the claims of senior Trump administration officials that he threatened to “massacre” officers.
In the aftermath of the killing, which was recorded by multiple witnesses, the Department of Homeland Security released an image of a handgun, which Donald Trump referred to as “the gunman’s gun” in a social media post. Kristi Noem, the DHS secretary, said at a briefing that Pretti had “approached US border patrol officers with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun”, though she later declined to say whether or not Pretti pulled the gun out.
Greg Bovino, a senior border patrol commander who was reprimanded by a federal judge last year for lying, also told reporters that Pretti had approached border patrol agents with the same gun.
“The agents attempted to disarm the individual, but he violently resisted. Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, a border patrol agent fired defensive shots,” Bovino said. “This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Nekima Levy Armstrong and Chauntyll Allen, who were arrested and charged for their role in an anti-ICE demonstration that disrupted Sunday church services in St Paul, Minnesota, have been released.
The decision by Donald Trump’s justice department to conduct no investigation into the deadly use of force by Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good, a Minneapolis resident who was moving her car out of the way of federal agents when he opened fire, reportedly distressed federal prosecutors and a leader of the FBI’s Minneapolis field office, according to reporting from MSNOW and the New York Times.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is facing scrutiny over its assertion that federal officers can forcibly enter a home without a judicial warrant – a move constitutional scholars, immigration experts and a federal judge say is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment.
Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday staunchly defended his stymied efforts to prosecute President Trump, saying in his first public testimony that he doesn’t regret taking on the failed probes — even as he stares down the threat of prosecution himself. 
