The Trump Administration's Initial Response to ICE's Killing of Alex Pretti Was Lying Through its Teeth

The killings of two observers documenting the occupation of Minneapolis by federal anti-immigration agents is the primary cause for nationwide outrage. But there is another aspect of this story that is an abuse of power in its own right: the Trump administration’s systematic lying about these cases, most recently in smearing of shooting victim Alex Pretti.

CNN’s Daniel Dale compares the claims to the facts:

Top officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have responded to the killing of Alex Pretti by the Border Patrol in Minneapolis on Saturday with a torrent of claims that are either contradicted by video footage or unsupported by any evidence presented so far.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed Pretti “attacked” officers, an assertion echoed by FBI Director Kash Patel, but no footage available as of Sunday afternoon shows Pretti committing any attack.

Noem claimed Pretti was “brandishing” a gun, but no available footage shows Pretti even holding a weapon in his hand at the scene; a concealed gun appeared to be taken from his waistband area by a federal agent moments before he was shot.

White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller referred to Pretti as “an assassin” who “tried to murder federal agents,” Vice President JD Vance reposted this claim, and Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino (and the Department of Homeland Security in a social media post) said it “looks like” Pretti “wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.” But nobody has shown any evidence that Pretti sought to kill anyone, let alone perpetrate a massacre.

Patel suggested that Pretti broke the law by carrying a concealed gun at a protest, but the Minneapolis police chief said Pretti had a permit to carry the gun and was allowed to have it on him as he was protesting in a public place.

Not only is this administration intent on describing all opponents as “domestic terrorists,” it will also make unfounded claims and invent facts to support it.

Lying to the public—including releasing AI-doctored photos—is an abuse of power in itself, because it is intended to prevent the American people from knowing the facts about the activities of their own government. The first requirement for the consent of the governed is that the governed are able to make an informed decision.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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