Trump knew he needed to ‘unf***’ DHS response to Alex Pretti taking pictures, officers says
President Donald Trump accepted he had to change course over his federal immigration surge in Minneapolis after the official response to the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti attracted uproar, according to a report.
Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse, was beaten and shot dead by Customs and Border Protection officers on Saturday after a confrontation.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem moved quickly to point out that Pretti had been armed and alleged that he planned to carry out an act of “domestic terrorism.”
CBP Commander Greg Bovino subsequently delivered a press conference at which he claimed the deceased intended to inflict “maximum damage” and “massacre law enforcement” while White House adviser Stephen Miller referred to the victim as a “would-be assassin.”
Looking on, Trump found the response of Noem and Bovino “callous,” according to an administration adviser quoted by Axios, prompting him to bring in border czar Tom Homan on Monday to take charge of the situation.
“It’s f***ed, and POTUS knew he needed to unf*** it,” the adviser told Axios of the disastrous fallout from Pretti’s killing.
A second source said of Bovino: “He’s a cowboy, and it was a mess. It was only escalation, and no one was going to back down… Homan going is a good thing. Someone needed to step in.”
The president also held late-night crisis talks on Monday with Noem and her aide, Corey Lewandowski, in the Oval Office, and sent Bovino back to California, according to various reports.
In addition, the president held calls with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey Monday pledging a new spirit of cooperation, after both had spent weeks complaining about ICE and other immigration forces “terrorizing” their citizens and urging them to leave, which saw the Department of Justice hit back aggressively by opening an investigation into them, accusing the pair of obstructing federal law enforcement.
Significantly, Trump did not leap to the defense of Noem by supporting her version of events, as he did when Good was shot dead, instead telling The Wall Street Journal on Sunday: “We’re looking, we’re reviewing everything and will come out with a determination.”
Another DHS official speaking to CBS News also hit at their department’s official response to the tragedy, suggesting that Noem and Bovino had sought to smear Pretti.
“It’s unclear who at DHS thought it would be a good idea to make such claims before any facts were established, but it was a terrible miscalculation,” they said.
Also speaking to CBS, another insider bemoaned the DHS’s “self-inflicted reputational harm” and said: “When we gaslight and contradict what the public can plainly see with their own eyes, we lose all credibility and it’s going to damage our reputation for generations.”
A former Border Patrol official told the network that, while his ex-colleagues “believe in the overall effort,” they are starting to feel that “what is being done is starting to lose them.”
“They feel caught in the middle with harmful rhetoric on both sides,” they added.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “The president’s entire immigration enforcement team – including Secretary Noem and Border Czar Homan – are on the same page.
“They are working together seamlessly to implement the president’s agenda, protect the American people and deport criminal illegal aliens.”
As was the case with the killing of Renee Good on January 7, his death was filmed by bystanders and widely seen online.
The footage revealed Pretti only had a phone in his hands when he was set upon by the agents, making a nonsense of the administration’s insistence that he was “brandishing” the 9mm semiautomatic pistol recovered from his person.
Source: independent.co.uk
