Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) has asked the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general to investigate whether Trump administration officials’ derisive characterizations of two U.S. citizens killed by federal agents in Minneapolis have biased the investigations into their deaths.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem and Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and a homeland security adviser, both described Renée Good and Alex Pretti as domestic terrorists after immigration agents fatally shot them last month in separate incidents in Minneapolis.
Their comments drew criticism from lawmakers in both parties, and the administration quickly backtracked.
In a letter, Hassan asked the DHS inspector general to investigate whether those comments have impeded or biased the investigations into the deaths of Good and Pretti, citing an exchange with another administration official as reason to open a probe.
Hassan asked Todd M. Lyons, the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing last week whether Noem’s and Miller’s comments could bias the investigations.
“Any comments that are made publicly, privately — texts, email or Instagram posts, whatever — is going to put a bias on the information,” Lyons responded.
“In light of Secretary Noem and Deputy Chief of Staff Miller’s public statements calling Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti domestic terrorists, and the fact that the leader of ICE subsequently testified to Congress that comments like these inject bias into investigations, I call on you to conduct an inquiry into the impact these statements may have had on federal investigations related to the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti,” Hassan wrote Thursday in a letter to Joseph Cuffari, the DHS inspector general.
She also asked Cuffari to look into whether Noem’s comments violated DHS policy and whether Noem and other DHS officials have exerted improper influence over the investigations into the deaths of Good and Pretti.
Any action by the inspector general, however, could be delayed because much of the department is shut down.
Much of DHS ran out of money last week after Democrats in Congress blocked legislation to fund it. Democrats have pledged not to send DHS any more money until Republicans agree to impose new restrictions on federal immigration agents in response to Good’s and Pretti’s deaths. The White House has expressed openness to some Democratic demands, but the two sides have not reached an agreement.
The inspector general’s office told Hassan’s office Thursday that the staffers “who evaluate requests and conduct audits, inspections and reviews are on furlough,” and that the office would review her request once funding is restored.
About 85 percent of the DHS inspector general’s ongoing audits, inspections and evaluations have been suspended during the shutdown, according to a spokesperson for the office. The suspended work includes a review of how ICE investigates allegations of excessive force and holds personnel accountable, and inspections of ICE detention facilities.
Cuffari, whom President Donald Trump nominated in 2019, was one of the only inspectors general at a Cabinet-level agency whom Trump did not fire last year shortly after taking office, along with Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general.
Democrats and Republicans have raised concerns that administration officials’ comments after Good’s and Pretti’s deaths could influence the investigations.
“People within the government made conclusions immediately that he was a terrorist and an assassin,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said at last week’s hearing. “People aren’t believing that it’s going to be an honest investigation.”
The administration quickly retreated from the claim that Pretti was a domestic terrorist after he was killed. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that she had not heard Trump refer to Pretti that way.
“I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche told “Fox & Friends” last month.
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