When the Propagandists Are Armed and Dangerous
INSIDE: Alex Pretti ... Todd Blanche ... Kristi Noem
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
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‘Maximum Damage’
After Saturday’s convulsion of state violence in Minneapolis, the Trump administration immediately began churning out a stream of propaganda that was full of lies, exaggerations, disinformation, and scurrilous attacks.
While a similar pattern played out after the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good, the preposterous response of the Trump administration to the Alex Pretti shooting was more over the top, distorting, and brazen in its demand that you deny what your eyes saw.
The very first public responses from DHS included releasing a photo of Pretti’s gun and claiming that he was carrying it and ammunition at the scene of a deportation operation in order to inflict “maximum damage” by slaughtering federal agents.
I’ve seen this called a “rush to judgment,” but that underplays the sinister and toxic avalanche of propaganda we saw over the past 48 hours. It’s not a rush to judge, but to punish, intimidate, inflame, and cower everyone from immigrants to local law enforcement to state elected officials to common citizens. Perhaps most ominously, it is another signal to federal agents that they are protected and that violent conduct is not only acceptable but desirable.
As shocking as the Pretti shooting was, captured on video from all angles, it is the administration’s incendiary propagandizing that not only offers no accountability for what has happened, but guarantees more such incidents in an ever-escalating assertion of absolute power.
Trump’s Assertion of Absolute Power
Here is the clearest encapsulation of Trumpism as a political project: Redraw the lines of who belongs, who is legitimate, who is part of the “Volk.” If you are, you get to rule, dominate, exploit. If you are not, because you deviate from MAGA’s vision of what “real America” is supposed to be, you have forfeited not only your rights and protections as a citizen, but also your humanity, your very right to live.
Are the Feds Really Investigating?
Despite public assurances, it remains unclear whether the federal government is investigating the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti. In contrast to the Good shooting, where the federal investigation was quickly shut down, officials have given lip service to an investigation this time, but the details are murky.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said over the weekend that an investigation is underway, but it’s not clear if he meant a Justice Department civil rights investigation, which would be the normal and proper avenue for reviewing a law enforcement shooting. In a bad sign, personnel in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office are “confused” about their roles, the WaPo reports:
FBI agents and prosecutors in the state are confused about what — if anything — their involvement will be in the investigation, according to multiple people familiar with the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of fear of retaliation.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says her department is investigating the shooting, but it’s not clear if that is in addition to or instead of a DOJ investigation. It would be highly unusual for DHS to take over the investigation in place of the FBI.
“The investigation is going to uncover all those facts, things like how many shots were fired, where were the weapons,” CBP commander Gregory Bovino said in a weekend press conference. “Those are the facts that will come out of the investigation.”
Bovino is ill-situated to provide any assurances about a post-shooting investigation. In addition to his on-the-ground role as an inciter, Bovino was the first official publicly to lodge the baseless charge that Pretti was intent on massacring federal agents. Bovino continued to insist through the weekend that federal agents were “victims” of the shooting.
As calls continue, including among Republicans, for an investigation into the Pretti shooting, be very wary of any attempt to set up a new investigative body or new process or procedure for probing the incident, especially one that cuts out state and local authorities.
A Tense Confrontation
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara ordered his officers to remain at the scene of the Pretti shooting despite DHS officials telling them to leave. The on-the-street confrontation presaged the feds once again cutting state and local law enforcement out of the post-shooting investigation.
Hard to Watch
The weekend was full of intense and shocking images from the Pretti shooting scene and its aftermath, but I found it especially hard to watch this recording of Pretti, an ICU nurse for the VA, conducting a brief impromptu ceremony in what looks like a hospital corridor to honor a veteran who had just died.
FBI Agent Resigns in Good Shooting Case
Tracee Mergen, a supervisor in the FBI’s Minneapolis field office resigned after she was pressured by higher-ups in D.C. to abandon a civil rights investigation into the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good. The call for her to end her inquiry came from aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who changed the focus of the investigation, MSNow reports:
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.
What to Watch for Today
Two important federal court cases are unfolding today in Minnesota plus political reaction to the Pretti shooting:
Operation Metro Surge: Lawyers for Minnesota are in court this morning urging U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez to order a halt to the Trump administration’s mass deportation operation in the state.
Pretti shooting: This afternoon, Minnesota will be in court arguing to keep in place an injunction that bars federal authorities from destroying “destroying or altering evidence” in the Pretti shooting case. A federal judge issued an emergency injunction late Saturday until he could hold a hearing today.
MN Chief Judge Put in Impossible Position
The legal sparring between the Trump DOJ and the chief federal judge in Minnesota over the anti-ICE church protestors is an important ancillary story to the weekend’s events. Steve Vladeck has probably the most in-depth account of the DOJ’s unprecedented effort to reverse a magistrate’s decision finding insufficient probable cause to arrest some of the protestors. Without the chief judge calling for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to unseal the legal fight, this may not have become publicly known.
Thread of the Day
Operation Metro Surge lawlessness has been running headlong into federal judges in Minnesota who are blocking some its most egregious conduct. Without federal court intervention we might not know about many of these incidents. Politico’s Kyle Cheney has been covering the story of judges nationwide ruling on illegal ICE detentions. In this thread, he zeroes in on some of the notable Minnesota cases:
A Letter to the National Security Elite
With tongue planted firmly in cheek, Chris Coyne congratulates those who used the Wars on Drugs and Terror to whittle the 4th Amendment down to the point that ICE is now conducting warrantless searches of homes: “The entire point of the last 50 years has been to create exceptions to constitutional protections. First for drug suspects. Then for terrorism suspects. Now for immigration suspects. Each exception normalizes the next. Eventually, the exceptions swallow the rule.”
ICE Officer Charged in Attack on Activist
An off-duty ICE officer was charged with misdemeanor battery in Illinois for allegedly throwing an activist to the ground. The activist, a 68-year-old estates and trusts lawyer, had followed the ICE agent from a nearby detention facility and was video recording him refueling his vehicle at a gas station when the agent allegedly tried to take his phone.
Unlawful Boat Strikes Resume
After a three-week pause following the military operation to capture Venezuela’s president, the Trump administration resumed its campaign of strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats. The 36th know strike occurred in the eastern Pacific on Friday, killing two and leaving one survivor, whose fate is unknown.
Quote of the Day
“What we’re going to have is a real-world experience of when unvaccinated people get measles. What is the new incidence of hospitalization? What’s the incidence of death?”—pediatric cardiologist Kirk Milhoan, hand-picked by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to be the new chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, with a ghoulish and decidedly unscientific view on the measles and polio vaccines
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How fun: a real world experience of watching unvaccinated people having measles! That will be absolutely fascinating, won’t it?
I read Morning Memo regularly but this list of atrocities is more than average shocking.