DHS’s crisis of legitimacy after the Pretti lies

They were lies. Not honest errors in the fog of war. Not spin. Lies. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem lied when she said of the Alex Pretti incident, “This looks like a situation where an individual arrived at the scene to inflict maximum damage on individuals and to kill law enforcement.”

Noem also lied by saying that Pretti had been “brandishing” a gun. 

Scores of video evidence don’t just “contradict” these claims, they expose them as fiction. Pretti was holding a cell phone. He was attempting to help a woman who had been shoved to the pavement. A licensed gun owner, he brought his pistol to the scene, but it remained holstered until a federal agent pulled it from his waistband after he had been tackled.