Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he “saw no evidence” to back the claims of senior Trump administration officials that Alex Pretti was attempting to assault law enforcement officers and instead “saw a man that was retreating” when he was shot and killed by federal officers in Minneapolis.
“I saw no evidence. I saw a man that was retreating. He went to the middle of the street, he didn’t even obstruct traffic, he let a car go through. As the agents advanced on him, he retreated to the side of the street. A woman is violently pushed to the ground and he turns to help her and that’s when he is grabbed from behind,” Paul told Scott Pelley on CBS’s “60 Minutes.”
“I saw no evidence of him assaulting the police,” Paul said, contradicting Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who called Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and claimed he wanted to “inflict maximum damage on individuals and kill law enforcement.”
Two federal officers fired approximately 10 shots into Pretti’s back after a third officer confiscated the pistol that he had been carrying concealed at his beltline with a legal permit.
He was holding his cell phone and his glasses at the time he was shot.
Noem also claimed that Pretti “attacked” officers and was “brandishing” a semi-automatic pistol when he was shot and killed by a Border Patrol officer.
Paul has sent letters to the heads of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) asking them to. testify before his committee on Feb. 12.
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Asked in the CBS interview whether Noem should resign, Paul responded: “I think we have to get through our hearing Feb. 12.”
“We have to see what the people who work for her say. But my advice to them, if they’re watching and they come to testify is, if you come in and you’re going to justify that this man was aggressively assaulting your police officers, that cannot be acceptable. That’s why they’re lacking in trust,” Paul said.
Asked about Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino’s claim that Pretti wanted to “inflict damage” on federal law enforcement officers and FBI Director Kash Patel’s claim that Pretti didn’t have the right to bring a permitted conceal-carry handgun to a protest and White House adviser Stephen Miller’s description of Pretti as an “assassin,” Paul simply shook his head in disagreement.
“It sounds like terrible judgment, I mean terrible conclusions, incorrect conclusions, stating things that no one else believes. You can lie to your heart’s content if there’s no video, but the video doesn’t support what they’re saying,” he said.
Paul added that senior administration officials have “without question” broken the trust of the American people.
Separately, Noem is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 3.
