The DHS is in the midst of a public relations crisis as officials fight internally over how to explain and respond to Border Patrol's shooting of protester Alex Pretti.
is in the midst of a public relations crisis as officials fight internally over how to explain and respond toThe behind-the-scenes and public finger-pointing between the White House, political officials at the Department of Homeland Security, and career law enforcement officials at U.
S Customs and Border Protection and U.S.Joe Scarborough and Sean Hannity have rare agreement on ICE raidsThree sources said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is worried about keeping her job amid the fallout, much of which centers on how she and Border Patrol’s now-demoted Commander of At-Large Operations, Greg Bovino, described the incident in its immediate aftermath. “This individual went and impeded their law enforcement operations, attacked those officers, had a weapon, and multiple dozens of rounds of ammunition, wishing to inflict harm on these officers, coming, brandishing like that, and impeding their work they were doing,” Noem said during a press conference on Saturday, hours after the shooting. “Violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and to perpetuate violence. That is the definition of domestic terrorism.” Noem’s decision to reach a rhetorical verdict on Pretti’s conduct before an investigation had been completed infuriated many people andto call up Trump and push the White House to address not only the situation in Minneapolis, but also how the DHS was talking about it. Sources within the DHS criticized Noem because her description of Pretti did not add up with what multiple videos of the incident showed: a man filming law enforcement who was approached by law enforcement and eventually shot in the head. It is not clear when police knew that he was armed or if they knew before shooting him, as multiple agents attempted to detain him during a physical altercation. “The Secretary definitely could have handled it better,” a senior federal law enforcement official wrote in an email. “I understand her wanting to support the agent but should have waited for details before speaking as she did.”a day earlier that the Border Patrol agents who attempted to detain Pretti were the “victims” in the incident and that Pretti was the “suspect.” Bovino added that Pretti had “injected” himself into the situation and was “more than likely” there to assault federal police. A second official within the DHS said even though the same message was being communicated by political and law enforcement within the DHS, public repetition of it was not helping the agents. “There’s been a lot of people I’ve come in contact with who are in DHS and that don’t have the actual mission’s best interest and will say things to cause turmoil and infighting which as a whole…we don’t need,” said a second federal source. “We need a strong and supportive structure. … I do think there could be a better approach to accomplish the mission.”Despite the actions that the White House has taken since Saturday to swap out Bovino for White House border czar Tom Homan, the department has not yet changed its messaging — and was seemingly standing firm on it on Tuesday.on Monday morning that neither she nor Noem had been asked by the White House not to do media appearances and maintained that she had seven “hits” scheduled for Tuesday. “ was armed. He got into a physical altercation with law enforcement. He was in the course of obstructing a federal operation, which is a federal crime,” McLaughlin told Fox News’s Dana Perino. “The Department of Homeland Security — we work every day to make sure we are giving the American people swift, accurate information, and so we’ll continue to do that.”“Well, we’ll let this investigation that homeland security investigators are leading, the FBI is supporting, and CBP is doing a separate internal investigation as well,” said McLaughlin.
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