At least three Kentucky Republicans are pushing back on the Trump administration’s narrative in the wake of federal agents shooting and killing 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis Saturday.
On Monday, Sen. Rand Paul called on the country’s top three immigration enforcement officials to testify before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs. He said Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight of tax dollars and to protect the American people.
“As you know, the Department of Homeland Security has been provided an exceptional amount of funding to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws,” Paul said in letters addressed to officials with Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Bystander videos and witness testimony show Pretti was holding a phone and helping a woman pushed by federal agents before he was sprayed with a chemical agent, pinned to the ground and fatally shot.
Trump administration officials immediately defended the agents’ actions as self-defense, calling Pretti a “domestic terrorist” and saying he intended to “massacre” officers. The Department of Homeland Security said Pretti was armed. However, Pretti had a permit to legally carry the gun in his holster and was at no point brandishing it in any of the bystander videos analyzed by major media organizations. One agent appeared to remove the gun moments before he was shot multiple times.
Paul’s letters don’t mention Pretti’s killing, but the hearing scheduled for Feb. 12 would be the first opportunity for senators to question Trump officials directly over the shooting.
U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie and state Rep. Savannah Maddox of Dry Ridge took issue with the Trump administration’s claims that Pretti was a threat to law enforcement because he was carrying a firearm.
“Your federal government is trying to convince you that the mere state of being armed—which is your God-given, constitutionally protected right—is a “threat to law enforcement,” Maddox said on the website X. “Subverting the 2nd Amendment was not ok under Biden, and it’s not ok now.”
Massie said carrying a firearm “is not a death sentence,” but a constitutionally protected right.
U.S. Rep. James Comer suggested in a Fox News segment on Sunday that Trump should consider sending ICE to a different U.S. city.
“If I were President Trump, I would almost think about, okay, if the mayor and the governor are going to put our ICE officials in harm’s way and there’s a chance of losing more, you know, innocent lives or whatever, then maybe go to another city and let the people of Minneapolis decide, ‘Do we want to continue to have all of these illegals? Are we going to allow our governor, attorney general and mayor to get away with this?'” Comer said.
Meanwhile Rep. Andy Barr said in a Facebook post he proudly supports funding ICE and the administration’s deportation efforts.
“Democrats opened the border to millions, including hundreds on the FBI Terror Watch List. Biden failed. President Trump shut it down, 2+ million deported. We won’t back down!"
Kentucky’s sole Democratic Congressman Morgan McGarvey said in a Facebook post the Trump administration is lying about the killing, and called it an “execution.”
“ICE is executing Americans and terrorizing our communities. And Trump is asking for a blank check to continue funding this campaign of terror. I voted NO, and every member of the Senate should too. Not another dollar for ICE,” McGarvey said.
