The Party of Trump is as predictable as it is unprincipled. Any display of weakness is an invitation to attack, like an injured caribou lagging behind the herd inviting attack by wolves. Except the right are the wolves. They eat their own. Thus their reflexive double down in response to failure/criticism/atrocities. We’ve all waited for the American right to double down one too many times. And we’ve been disappointed time and again.
They’re doing it again. In the wake of public outrage over a Customs and Border Patrol agent (per AP) shooting and killing Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday, government agents are sticking to their guns. Literally. Matt Cameron/Bluesky reacted to a press appearance by U.S. Border Patrol Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino Sunday afternoon:
CBP chief Bovino has confirmed that the officers who executed Alex Pretti in the street yesterday are not only *not on administrative leave,* they have all been reassigned to other jurisdictions and are all on the street today. This is totally unheard of for any officer-involved shooting
I watched the entire DHS press conference which Bovino just held a few minutes ago. They are tripling down on the fascism. Bovino could not have not been more clear that there is nothing that can’t be justified in the name of immigration enforcement, and that there will never be consequences for ICE
In none of his appearances today did Bovino acknowledge that this was in any way regrettable or could have been prevented. Because he doesn’t regret it, and he wants it to happen again. Terrorizing anyone who is trying to hold them accountable is their only play rn
An important point here: admin leave is a necessary and expected minimum response after someone has been fatally shot, even in cases in which there is no real question that it was justified. You just took a life.
To be clear, I am referring here to Bovino’s press conference of a few minutes ago. He told CNN earlier today that the officers would likely be assigned to “administrative duties” in other places, which is both different from what he said later and still not admin leave
It was obvious from how Bovino answered this question that his only concern in this situation was that the public not learn the killers’ names. He is at best absolutely indifferent to people under his command wantonly executing people in the street, and more likely privately celebrating it
After the shooting, an angry crowd gathered and screamed profanities at federal officers, calling them “cowards” and telling them to go home. One officer responded mockingly as he walked away, telling them: “Boo hoo.”
An Afghan warlord
Politico on Saturday discussed the message sent by Bovino’s “olive wool, double-breasted overcoat with epaulettes, brass buttons and pointed applied cuffs.” Its classic military styling is meant to send a message about the increasing militarization of immigration enforcement:
Uniforms perform three important roles: They reveal what an institution believes itself to be; they shape how the public sees service members; and they affect how service members see themselves.
It’s clear how Bovino sees himself. An Afghan War veteran in Minneapolis told MS Now’s Jacob Soboroff three days before Pretti’s killing that Bovino was driving around town “like an Afghan warlord.” Politico again:
By dressing immigration enforcement officials in battle-ready attire, the agency encourages agents to understand themselves not as civil servants carrying out administrative law, but as frontline combatants operating in hostile terrain. That shift in self-conception may help partially explain the aggressive tactics ICE officers have deployed in Minneapolis, where they have used chemical irritants against peaceful demonstrators, thrown gas canisters into crowds and, most notably, fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good. Over time, this produces a self-reinforcing cycle: militarized dress fosters aggressive posture; aggressive posture fuels public fear; and that fear is then cited as justification for even greater militarization.
When a domestic agency dresses for war, it risks acting as if it is at war, even with the public. Clothing alone does not determine conduct, but it can help shape a worldview in which violent confrontation is more likely.
If this rumor from before Saturday’s shooting is true, the next city on Bovino’s target list is Philadelphia. An X user likened it to “Hitler sending you to Stalingrad.”
A Bluesky user responded, “Imgaine [sic] getting sent packing with your ass in your own two hands by some of the nicest people in the world and then showing up in a city that is famous for booing santa claus.”
All in all, I’d rather Bovino and his tin soldiers slink away. But I expect them to double (or triple) down on fascism. Was Saturday one too many times? Or do we see more?
We knew that a number of top prosecutors in the Minneapolis field office resigned rather than follow the order to investigate Renee Good’s family, but we didn’t have these details:
Aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche directed the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI agents based in Minnesota to shut down a civil rights investigation into an officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good and instead alter it to probe Good for possible criminal liability, according to three people briefed on the discussions.
After Good was killed on Jan. 7, FBI agents drafted a search warrant to obtain her car to reconstruct the path of bullets that an ICE officer shot into the vehicle. But they were instructed to redraft their warrant and change the subject of the investigation from a civil rights probe to an investigation into a suspected assault on an officer, the people said.
A federal magistrate judge rejected that warrant, noting that Good was already dead and could not be considered a suspect for a warrant.
You cannot make this stuff up.
Last Friday, yet another FBI supervisor resigned:
Meanwhile, Tracee Mergen, an FBI supervisor in the Minneapolis field office who oversees fraud and public corruption cases, resigned in frustration over the handling by Justice Department leadership of the Good shooting investigation and the pivot of the original search warrant subject, according to two of the sources. Mergen is said to be frustrated as well with the Trump administration’s decision to treat protesters in Minnesota as possible domestic terrorists and conduct mass arrests of people peaceably protesting, according to two people familiar with her decision. The New York Times reported her departure earlier Friday evening.
After the Pretti murder yesterday, the government reportedly started scouring social media to see if they can smear him the same way they smeared Good. No word if they want to investigate him too. I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried it again. Nothing seems to stop them.
The poor boo boos. These super high IQ ICE agents don’t like loud noises. Whistles should definitely be banned as a WMD.
They’re also very emotionally sensitive:
That’s not doxxing but whatever. They were not in mortal danger. They were inconvenienced. But not as inconvenienced as the citizens and legal residents being dragged from their cars, thrown to the ground and assaulted by ICE officers for no reason then detained for hours or days and sometimes driven around in their cars enduring insults and painful constraints only to be let out miles from home. Or how about the hard working immigrants who have been here for years being dragged from their homes and separated from their families only to be sent to countries they don’t remember and where they don’t speak the language? How about the dead people?
I’m sorry, these ICE agents get NO sympathy. They were locked inside a restaurant (probably one which had immigrant labor preparing their food)? Boo fucking hoo.
wow — Maria Bartiromo seems to be legit upset about the killing of Alex Pretti. It's very rare for her to be offsides with the Trump administration. pic.twitter.com/IeTvymNR2N
There is no greater Trump fluffer than Maria Bartiromo. I’ve never seen her challenge the administration’s lies like this before:
BARTIROMO: There is outrage across the country that there is another killing. Someone is dead at the hands of Border Patrol. What can you tell us?
KASH PATEL: You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions. We not messing around. pic.twitter.com/bBTFWRtmdT
Maria Bartiromo to Kash Patel: "You've gotta get together with the president's detractors, whether it is on the Democrat side or not, to ensure that we don't have mistakes like we've been seeing." pic.twitter.com/3rYMcbSsxH
Kash Patel: "You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines to any sort of protest that you want. It's that simple. You don't have a right to break the law." (Pretti was carrying a gun legally.) pic.twitter.com/EzGENVT26q
That’s highly unusual. I don’t know if it will last or is just a weird Sunday morning anomaly. But the Wall St.Journal had this today:
Here are the big employers in Minnesota issuing a statement arguing for de-escalation. It’s not great — the don’t mention ICE and it’s pretty mealy-mouthed. But at least they’re banding together to say something.
Does it mean anything? Probably not. I’m still waiting for any Republican other than the usual suspects to step up and haven’t seen anything yet. The Senate Democrats are now vowing to hold up the DHS funding and shut down the government over this which is absolutely essential so that’s something.
This from one of the most Republican leaning pollsters is interesting:
Until recently, I resisted using the F-word to describe President Trump. For one thing, there were too many elements of classical fascism that didn’t seem to fit. For another, the term has been overused to the point of meaninglessness, especially by left-leaning types who call you a fascist if you oppose abortion or affirmative action. For yet another, the term is hazily defined, even by its adherents. From the beginning, fascism has been an incoherent doctrine, and even today scholars can’t agree on its definition. Italy’s original version differed from Germany’s, which differed from Spain’s, which differed from Japan’s.
I accepted President Biden’s characterization of the MAGA movement as “semi-fascist” because some parallels were glaringly apparent. Trump was definitely an authoritarian, and unquestionably a patrimonialist. Beyond that, though, the best description seemed to be a psychological one propounded by John Bolton, Trump’s first-term national security adviser: “He listens to Putin, he listens to Xi, he listens to how they talk about governing unburdened by uncooperative legislatures, unconcerned with what the judiciary may do, and he thinks to himself, Why can’t I do that? This doesn’t amount to being a fascist, in my view, [or] having a theory of how you want to govern. It’s just Why can’t I have the same fun they have?”
Writing a year ago, I argued that Trump’s governing regime is a version of patrimonialism, in which the state is treated as the personal property and family business of the leader. That is still true. But, as I also noted then, patrimonialism is a style of governing, not a formal ideology or system. It can be layered atop all kinds of organizational structures, including not just national governments but also urban political machines such as Tammany Hall, criminal gangs such as the Mafia, and even religious cults. Because its only firm principle is personal loyalty to the boss, it has no specific agenda. Fascism, in contrast, is ideological, aggressive, and, at least in its early stages, revolutionary. It seeks to dominate politics, to crush resistance, and to rewrite the social contract.
Over Trump’s past year, what originally looked like an effort to make the government his personal plaything has drifted distinctly toward doctrinal and operational fascism. Trump’s appetite for lebensraum, his claim of unlimited power, his support for the global far right, his politicization of the justice system, his deployment of performative brutality, his ostentatious violation of rights, his creation of a national paramilitary police—all of those developments bespeak something more purposeful and sinister than run-of-the-mill greed or gangsterism.
When the facts change, I change my mind. Recent events have brought Trump’s governing style into sharper focus. Fascist best describes it, and reluctance to use the term has now become perverse. That is not because of any one or two things he and his administration have done but because of the totality. Fascism is not a territory with clearly marked boundaries but a constellation of characteristics. When you view the stars together, the constellation plainly appears.
Last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave what is likely to be remembered as an historic speech in which he declared “there has been a rupture in the world order, the end of a pleasant fiction and the beginning of a harsh reality, where geopolitics, where the large, main power, geopolitics, is submitted to no limits, no constraints.” He made it clear that America’s allies finally understood that the reelection of Donald Trump had ushered in a new era in which the rule book that had, for better or worse, guided the world for over 80 years has just been thrown out the window. Carney urged what he called the “middle powers” to stand up for their principles and self-interest.
One couldn’t help but think of that call to arms just a couple of days later when former special prosecutor Jack Smith appeared before the House Judiciary Committee to testify for the first time in public. While his opening statement will not have the historic significance of Carney’s speech, the sentiment was very much the same: There has been a rupture and something important is at stake.
“I have seen how the rule of law can erode,” Smith said. “My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in this country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. But, the rule of law is not self-executing — it depends on our collective commitment to apply it. It requires dedicated service on behalf of others, especially when that service is difficult and comes with costs. Our willingness to pay those costs is what tests and defines our commitment to the rule of law and to this wonderful country.”
The rupture in America was Jan. 6, and the subsequent destruction of the rule of law is now in full effect as the president of the United States openly abuses his power to wreak revenge on his political enemies.
The rupture in America was Jan. 6, and the subsequent destruction of the rule of law is now in full effect as the president of the United States openly abuses his power to wreak revenge on his political enemies, allows paramilitary troops to commit mayhem in the streets of American cities by defying all rules, norms and legal constraint. The people of Minneapolis — including Alex Jeffrey Pretti, a 37-year-old Veterans Affairs intensive-care unit nurse and a U.S. citizen who was needlessly gunned down by Border Patrol agents on Saturday — are paying the costs of what Smith described, as are others who’ve been targeted by the Trump administration.
Just as Carney aimed his speech at the other democracies that have depended on the American security guarantee, Smith was speaking to Congress, perhaps in the vain hope that even some Republicans would listen. He surely hoped that his statement might reach the majority of the public that is appalled by what they are seeing the administration do to rule of law.
Smith testified in a straight, “just the facts” manner, refusing to take the bait from Republicans on the panel who were trying to make him lose his cool. A long-time career prosecutor, he knew better than to fall into their traps. But that didn’t make his testimony any less dramatic.
“Donald Trump is the person who caused Jan. 6,” Smith said. “[T]he evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions as alleged in the indictments they returned.” The facts, he testified, remain clear: “President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
Smith was also direct about Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, stating that he “illegally kept [them] at his Mar-a-Lago social club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents.”
The clean, spare way that Smith laid out the cases proved a reminder of what the country might have been spared — a second Trump presidency — had the Justice Department under former Attorney General Merrick Garland moved faster, had the courts not indulged Trump’s delaying tactics and had enough Americans not inexplicably decided to ignore mounds of credible evidence and put Trump back in the White House. The former special counsel’s obvious confidence and competence made it all the more depressing; he would have held Trump accountable.
And it’s clear Smith possessed incriminating testimony. “Some of the most powerful witnesses were witnesses who, in fact, were fellow Republicans who had voted for Donald Trump, who had campaigned for him and who wanted him to win the election
Smith’s appearance reminded us that these cases weren’t big mysteries. The only defense Trump could have possibly presented would have been that the law shouldn’t apply to him. It’s hard to imagine that a jury would have felt the same way.
Over and over again, Smith repeated that he and his team had turned up enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump had committed the crimes for which he had been indicted. And when asked if the president knew that he had lost the election, the former special counsel pulled no punches. “Our investigation revealed that Donald Trump was not looking for honest answers about whether there was fraud in the election,” Smith said. “He was looking for ways to stay in power… He, in fact, knew that the fraud claims he was making were false.”
Republicans on the panel pushed their narrative that Smith and his team had operated as partisan operatives at the behest of former President Joe Biden, which we know is not true. And Smith’s testimony obviously incensed Trump, who spent the rest of the day and half the night obsessively attacking his nemesis and posting conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. The former special counsel, Trump said, is a “deranged animal” and accused him of “large scale perjury” in his congressional testimony. The president all but directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to “[look] at what [Smith’s] done” and said that “a big price should be paid” by Smith and the witnesses he had — nearly all of whom were Republicans — “for what they put the country through.”
Smith was asked if he anticipated facing prosecution from Trump’s Justice Department. He replied, “I believe they will do everything in their power to do that because they have been ordered to by the president.” Considering what Trump was posting, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
It’s doubtful that Smith’s testimony will have changed anyone’s mind. Trump’s cult following believes that Jan. 6 and the classified documents case were all a hoax perpetrated by Democrats. But it’s important to have Smith on the record — and for the country to see him as the sober, serious public servant he is. If there’s any hope for restoring the rule of law in this country, we must preserve the idea that such people exist. The Republican Party’s corrupt abuse of power has made it all too easy to forget that.
So tell me what you want, what you really, really want
Study authors from More in Common report the results of focus groups and interviews of 10,000 people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024. Beyond MAGA finds that Trump voters fall into four broad categories (The Atlanticgift link):
About 29 percent of 2024 Trump voters are what we call the “MAGA Hardliners.” These are the fiery core of Trump’s base, mostly composed of white Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, who are animated by the belief that God is on their side in America’s existential struggle between good and evil. Then there are the “Anti-Woke Conservatives”(21 percent): a more secular and affluent group of voters deeply frustrated by what they perceive as the takeover of schools, culture, and institutions by the progressive left. Another 30 percent are the “Mainline Republicans”: a more racially diverse group of middle-of-the-road conservatives who prioritize border security, a strong economy, and cultural stability. Finally, we have the “Reluctant Right”(20 percent). Members of this group, unlike the other three, are not necessarily part of Trump’s base; they voted for him, but have ambivalent feelings toward him. Only half identify as Republicans, and many picked Trump because he seemed “less bad” than the alternative.
(It’s that last 20 percent that I’m focused on. But that’s another story.)
The first three are sticking with their man-child no matter what. It’s not about coherent ideology, and certainly not about consistency. Trump knows where to stroke them. He fills several roles for them based on the glasses through which they view him.
First, 58 percent see him they seem him as “a builder trying to fix a broken system” even though to the left he seems to be demolishing it. His second role is as redeemer of the status they believe they’ve lost. “Most Trump voters in our study believe that America’s cultural institutions have been dominated by those who scorn their values and way of life.” Also, “Seventy-six percent agree that ‘The woke left has ruined American education, news, and entertainment.’” Is it because when they view music and media they no longer see themselves at the center of American culture? Why couldn’t those people have just stuck with sports?
For those who revel in transgression, Trump is a “blasphemer,” “a gigantic orange flashing middle finger” to those they feel have done them wrong. The authors explain, “About 90 percent of MAGA Hardliners and Anti-Woke Conservatives agree that the ‘left actually hates America.’ This generates a desire not just for redemption but also for retribution.” One wonders if their sense that the left hates America is projection. Isn’t it really that they hate how America has changed since the 1960s, America the diverse?
And lastly, he is a “grand narrator” and the hero of his own story. This role is “understood only in the context of a decades-long collapse of trust in American institutions including Congress, the press, academia, and the scientific establishment.”
But it’s Trump’s performing skills that make it all work:
Trump’s political skills were forged in WWE arenas, on reality-TV sets, and in the luxury real-estate business—industries that live and die by their ability to capture attention, simplify narratives, and deliver emotional impact. These experiences taught him how to establish emotional bonds with audiences that far outweigh any connection based on shared ideology.
Trump’s detractors may dismiss these bonds as empty or irrelevant. But for the people who experience them, they are very real. The relationship Trump has established with tens of millions of Americans offers them something they cannot attain through conventional politics. In his various roles, he embodies the reality that they want. This is the source of his power.
For a taste of the reality they really, really want, ask Rep. Max Frost (D) of Florida.
Last night, I was assaulted by a man at Sundance Festival who told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face. He was heard screaming racist remarks as he drunkenly ran off. The individual was arrested and I am okay.
“This started as a pretext about immigration and fraud”
America, you did this to yourself. You knowingly elected a criminal sociopath as president. Donald Trump staffed his administration with criminals, sociopaths, psychopaths, pathological liars and spineless lickspittles. They have betrayed both the oaths they took to the U.S. Constitution and their duty to the American people. Law and order is breaking down before our eyes at the hands of those purporting to uphold it. The Saturday morning killing, if not outright murder, of 37-year-old Veterans Administration nurse, Alex Pretti, by federal agents masquerading as law enforcement simply confirms it.
I’m not simply referring to the vicious thugs with guns who at point-blank range gunned down the second citizen of Minneapolis in under three weeks.
The Trump administration’s lawlessness over the last year has left decent Americans stunned, mouths agape, unwilling to accept what our eyes tell us, seeing but not believing what is happening to our country.
This video from the streets of Minneapolis describes the breakdown in a minute and a half.
This Minneapolis resident just said what everyone should be feeling right now:
“This started as a pretext about immigration and fraud… it’s WELL beyond that now.
It’s your 2nd Amendment, your 4th Amendment, your 6th Amendment.”
Robert Mackey’s story this morning in The Guardian refutes the Trump administration’s snap narrative smearing Pretti point by point. I won’t be complicit in spreading the lies here even in refutation. Witness flings in federal court since the shooting also refute the obvious lies from the Trump administration. The statements won’t matter. An administration that believes it can fool enough of the people all of the time to retain its grip on power will keep telling them.
You have to read this. Firsthand affidavit from one of the women who was there and recording the video. She talks about how Alex Pretti was directing traffic when she arrived. She watched him be killed in front of her. She's afraid to go home, worried she'll be arrested. https://t.co/GPlyj4VRHmpic.twitter.com/ifztxXiA28
Events in the aftermath of the Pretti killing are somehow more disturbing. Actions by the Trump administration reveal a callous disregard for the rule of law except as an instrument of tyranny. Attempts to hold this administration accountable to the law and keep the judicial system’s edifice from collapsing are unsettling in the extreme.
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday lifted a lower court’s order that had restrained federal officers from arresting or tear-gassing peaceful protesters in Minneapolis, where thousands of immigration control agents have been deployed over the wishes of state and local leaders.
Cato’s David Bier responds to that court action in the wake of the Pretti killing; “[I]n less than 48 hours, someone is dead. My God, how our institutions have failed us!”
Plaintiffs filed an emergency motion to get the restrictions reinstated.
MORE: Plaintiffs in the case have added a declaration from a pediatrician who sought to administer aid to Alex Pretti after he was shot. "ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds." https://t.co/2Jw11lIAvOpic.twitter.com/1lx6qNLH4Z
Trump administration officials attempted, as what it described as a national security emergency, to indict eight people involved in a church protest in the Twin Cities. The magistrate judge in the case found no probable cause to support the arrest warrants for three. On appeal, the Chief Judge of the Minnesota district court replied to the “emergency,” writing, “The government has also argued that I must accept this as true because they said it, and they are the government…I respectfully suggest that the petition is frivolous.”
A magistrate judge found no probable cause to support arrest warrants for 5 people involved in the St. Paul church protest.
AG Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is using the Pretti killing as leverage for Trump to get his hands on Minnesota’s voter files. “Guess what?” asks Sen. Chris Murphy of Conn. “This has never been about safety or immigration. It’s a pretext for Trump to take over elections in swing states.”
Arizona Attorney General Adrian Fontes responded, “This isn’t leadership. This is blackmail.”
As insane as this sounds, it’s true: Pam Bondi sent Minnesota officials a letter today saying ICE would leave the state if Minnesota turns over its voter files to the Trump Administration.
Of course it is. The Trump administration is an ongoing criminal organization in charge of the world’s last superpower.
The only other flicker of life from what was our democratic republic is a demand from House Republicans that ICE and CBP leaders give an immediate accounting of their actions
🚨🔥DAM BREAKING: House Homeland Security Republicans just summoned ICE + CBP leadership to testify.
They sent formal letters demanding the heads of ICE and CBP show up in Congress ASAP.
I suspect it is all for show. Our nation is grievously wounded and the criminals running it have no interest in keeping it alive. The law itself is pretext.
Here’s how DHS described that scene within minutes of it happening:
At 9:05 AM CT, as DHS law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted operation in Minneapolis against an illegal alien wanted for violent assault, an individual approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun, seen here. The officers attempted to disarm the suspect but the armed suspect violently resisted. More details on the armed struggle are forthcoming
Fearing for his life and the lives and safety of fellow officers, an agent fired defensive shots. Medics on scene immediately delivered medical aid to the subject but was pronounced dead at the scene. The suspect also had 2 magazines and no ID—this looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.
About 200 rioters arrived at the scene and began to obstruct and assault law enforcement on the scene, crowd control measures were deployed for the safety of the public and law enforcement. This situation is evolving, and more information is forthcoming.
They could not have possibly done even the most cursory “investigation” before putting that out.
And remember this:
Aaron is one of the most valuable resources on social media, capturing the videos that inform us all of what’s going on with our government. He lives in Minneapolis and has two little kids he’s had to send away. You can feel his anger and terror over what’s happening to his home town.
This is a nightmare. Something has to give.
Do you know how hard it is to get cops to seemingly side with people shot by a bunch of officers
The part you missed, Bill (@FoxNews) — DHS law enforcement officers had already disarmed the suspect when they fired "defensive shots," killing the man. They then fired several shots at his lifeless body.
Just hours after man brutally killed, U.S. citizen Matthew Allen brutally arrested in Minneapolis as his wife Sarah Allen watches in horror. She explains to a clergy member comforting her, they were both running away from the tear gas & he was arrested. Heartbreaking to watch. 😢 pic.twitter.com/WnpckwauRA
Bovino shamelessly lies: "This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement" pic.twitter.com/VdiOAhcyAT
I think the following pretty much closes the case. If you have an X account I suggest you click over to see the frame by frame. It’s clear the man was on his knees with his hands on the ground. An ICE agent saw the gun in his back waistband (which he was legally carrying.) The agent grabs the gun then moves away and for some reason another agent shot the protester, backed up and shot into his body numerous times.
1/12
Frame by frame breakdown of this MURDER shows ICE is lying!
-ICE had ALREADY disarmed the man before shooting.
-The man NEVER drew his gun.
At the 0:06 second mark we see the man’s hands on the ground covered in large gloves.
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) January 24, 2026
When you add this to the video of him taken before the murder, directing traffic with his phone in his hand, being rousted by agents (again with just his phone in his hand) then being beaten and shot, there can be no doubt that this was an execution.
To see the federal government, including Trump, respond to this the way they have shows that America has now officially become a police state.
Meanwhile. the demented orange freak has this to say:
Good Lord:
The killings will continue until you give us the state voter rolls
Videos on social media that were verified by The New York Times appear to contradict the Department of Homeland Security’s account of the fatal shooting of Alex Jeffrey Pretti, 37, by federal agents in Minneapolis on Saturday morning.
The Department of Homeland Security said the episode began after a man “approached US Border Patrol officers with a 9 mm semi-automatic handgun” and they tried to disarm him. The statement did not specify whether the gun was in the man’s hands or merely on his body.
Footage shows Mr. Pretti was clearly holding a phone, not a gun, before the agents took him to the ground and shot him.
This is what the videos show, according to a Times analysis:
A small group of protesters stands in the street, speaking to a federal agent as whistles sound. Mr. Pretti appears to be filming the scene with his phone and directing traffic.
An agent begins shoving the demonstrators, and squirts pepper spray at their faces.
At this moment, Mr. Pretti has both hands clearly visible. One is holding his phone, while he holds the other up to protect himself from pepper spray. He moves to help one of the protesters who was sprayed, as other agents approach and pull him from behind.
Several agents tussle with Mr. Pretti before bringing him to his knees. He appears to resist as the agents grab his legs, push down on his back and strike him repeatedly.
The footage shows an agent approaching with empty hands and grabbing at Mr. Pretti as the others hold him down.
About eight seconds after he is pinned, agents yell that he has a gun, indicating that they may not have known he was armed until he was on the ground.
The same agent who approached with empty hands pulls a gun from among the group that appears to match the profile of a firearm DHS said belonged to Mr. Pretti.
The agents appear to have him under their control, with his arms pinned near his head.
As the gun emerges from the melee, another agent aims his own firearm at Mr. Pretti’s back and appears to fire one shot at close range. He then appears to continue firing at Mr. Pretti, who collapses.
A third agent unholsters a weapon. Both agents appear to fire additional shots into Mr. Pretti as he lies motionless.
In total, at least 10 shots appear to have been fired within five seconds.
That is what happened as anyone who has seen all the videos will tell you. The administration is lying blatantly and without restraint.
Good news that the non-political MSM is posting stuff like this. Maybe this will penetrate.
