The footage shows Pretti holding his phone, not a gun. It shows him trying to help a woman pepper-sprayed by Trump’s immigration goons. We see him pepper-sprayed as he backs away, not attacking.
It shows Border Patrol agents tackling him, pinning him to the ground, and shooting him multiple times while he was restrained. There is no moment in the video where Pretti threatens an officer, brandishes a weapon, or poses an imminent danger.
Yet while Bovino attempts to shut down a frank discussion about his agency’s summary execution with that “ongoing investigation” bullshit, other Trump administration officials rushed in to invent their own reality.
At a press conference about Pretti’s killing, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed he “attacked” Border Patrol officers, that he was “brandishing” a gun, and that he was gunned down to protect fellow officers.
None of that was true. Not even close.
The claims were so blatantly false that even within the administration, cracks are already showing. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche refused to back up DHS’s assertion that Pretti was engaging in domestic terrorism, saying on “Fox & Friends” that “I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism,” and warning that it would be wrong to “prejudge the facts.”
He declined to describe Pretti’s actions as anything more than “a tragedy.”
Whether Blanche is later forced to walk that back by Trump remains to be seen. But the truth is easily verified by the simplest possible test: watch the video. CNN’s Jake Tapper overlays the footage with Noem’s fantasy explanation, revealing a made-up version of events with no relationship to what actually happened: |
