DHS Throws Stephen Miller Under the Bus for Alex Pretti Smear Campaign
By: Edith Olmsted (The New Republic)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
As public sentiment turns on Donald Trump's administration, the blame game heats up.
Stephen Maturen/Getty Images
The Department of Homeland appears to have found a new scapegoat on behalf of federal agents who brutally killed a U.S. citizen in broad daylight: White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has reportedly started blaming Miller for her decision to label Alex Pretti, who was shot and killed by federal immigration agents in Minnesota over the weekend, as a "domestic terrorist."
Although Noem's Cabinet position means she outranks Miller, as an architect of the Trump administration's lethal immigration policy, the ghoulish presidential adviser's power does extend over DHS functions.
In a meeting with Donald Trump Monday—which notably excluded Miller—Noem made sure to emphasize that in the aftermath of the shooting, she'd been taking her directions from Miller and the president, a source told Axios.
"Everything I've done, I've done at the direction of the president and Stephen," Noem told a person who relayed her remarks to Axios.
Some in the White House are blaming Customs and Border Patrol for furnishing Trump administration officials with an incident report offering scant details, leading them to believe Pretti had "brandished" a weapon. Once Miller heard that a gun had been involved, he immediately started to formulate a narrative in which Pretti intended to massacre federal agents, one source told Axios.
Minutes after DHS published a statement Saturday claiming Pretti was an "armed suspect" who "violently resisted" federal officers' attempts to disarm him, Miller posted the baseless claim that Pretti was a "would-be assassin" who'd attempted to murder federal law enforcement officers. Noem then repeated this language in her press conference later that day.
Footage of the arrest indicated that federal agents were not aware that Pretti was armed when they started beating him, and that Pretti was already disarmed with his arms pinned above his head when he was shot at least 10 times.
It seems that Miller may be hoping to backtrack on his callous lies, and has suddenly changed his story on Alex Pretti's killing after Trump's inner circle began to turn on him.
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The buck stops nowhere.
Looks like (maybe wishful thinking) that the wheels on that bus are starting to fall off.
Throwing each other under the bus is the first sign the wheels are slipping.
I'm interested to see if Trump starts back tracking on certain issues if mid-term poll numbers crater like has been predicted.
It has that feel. Something is definitely happening. The American people are experiencing total revulsion over the ICE terror being visited upon us by the Trumpist regime, and something has to give. Something is going to give. We are NOT going to put up with it any more.
I would love to get verification that she said this.
It seems entirely plausible and reflects what an obsequious sycophant like Noem would indeed do (follow the direction of Miller and Trump). But hearsay is not helpful.
her say is, if as you stated, proven true, which is difficult to do, whence dealing with such a corrupt lying pos administration headed by the biggest POS ever to grace the White Power House of Shame, cause it has NEVER been Trump to blame, as he spins it like a gust of wind, blowing out the flame, on a torch such as that of lady Liberty, which should be quite easy to see, if one opens their eyes, but it appears truth is theirs to despise, despite what their lying eyes does disclose, the thruth evades those who choose to remain knot tied to watt heard is what one knows, and for US All, that truly , blows