Faced with broad outcry over the killing of a protester Saturday in Minneapolis, the White House pulled a top border official from the city on Monday and tried to distance US president Donald Trump from the response of his most senior officials, who had immediately characterised the man fatally shot by federal agents as a “domestic terrorist” who was “brandishing” a gun, before video evidence undercut their charges.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, notably did not defend the rhetoric of White House officials, including Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, who were the most vocal in spreading false accusations against the victim, Alex Pretti. Pretti was shot roughly 10 times by immigration agents after he was apparently filming them with his camera.
He was licensed to carry a gun in Minnesota, but video from several angles shows he never pulled one, and his hands were visible as he was shot in the back.
White House officials clearly understood that the killing, the second of an American citizen protesting the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in Minneapolis, posed one of the gravest political threats to Trump since his inauguration just a little more than a year ago.
Yet they seemed frozen in place, unwilling to walk back the statements by Miller and Noem, which were widely repeated throughout the administration, while sending Leavitt out to insist that “we will let the facts lead and we will let the facts play out in this investigation”.
They provided no evidence to back up the statements by the two officials, who have become the face of Trump’s efforts to deport immigrants in the US illegally. And while Leavitt would not contradict the two officials, she insisted to reporters that “nobody in the White House, including president Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets”.
She also declined to defend the attacks on Pretti.
“This has obviously been a very fluid and fast-moving situation throughout the weekend,” Leavitt said. “As for president Trump, whom I speak for, he has said that he wants to let the investigation continue and let the facts lead in this case.”
Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official. Photograph: Vincent Alban/The New York Times
For two days, the White House has struggled to contain the fallout from the killing. Democrats have been withering in their criticism of the administration’s actions, and Republicans have begun joining calls for a fair investigation into the killing. Even the National Rifle Association, long an ally of Republican administrations, has defended Pretti, who had a concealed-carry permit.
The bipartisan pushback on Capitol Hill now risks another government shutdown as lawmakers threaten to withhold funding for Ice after the killing of Pretti.
A makeshift memorial a the site in Minneapolis where Alex Pretti was shot and killed by federal immigration agents. Photograph: Jamie Kelter Davis/The New York Times
The administration was planning to move Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official whose harsh tactics have drawn sharp criticism, out of the city, according to two officials with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity. Several other Border Patrol agents were expected to leave with him, the latest sign that the administration was pulling back on its aggressive enforcement action inside the city.
Hours before news of Bovino’s impending departure circulated, Trump dispatched his border chief, Tom Homan, to oversee the immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis and backed off his attacks on Minnesota governor Tim Walz after a phone call with him.
Bovino had been one of the first to deliver what turned out to be false information about Pretti, but the White House refused to acknowledge that his statements, and others from different top officials, were contradicted by the video evidence. Leavitt called Bovino “a great professional” who “is going to very much continue to lead Customs and Border Patrol throughout and across the country”.
[ Alex Pretti: How another Ice killing outraged America and damaged TrumpOpens in new window ]
In his latest pivot, Trump moved from castigating Walz as a cause of the violence in Minneapolis and declared that, in their call, they “seemed to be on a similar wavelength”.
Trump said on social media that Walz was “happy that Tom Homan was going to Minnesota”. Trump announced earlier in the day that Homan would be his personal representative overseeing Ice operations in the state.
It was a sharp contrast from his weekend pronunciations, in which the president blamed Walz and other Minnesota Democrats for Pretti’s death. Those remarks echoed his comments after the fatal shooting by federal agents of a Minneapolis woman, Renee Good, this month.
[ White House backtracks initial claims about Alex Pretti after intense backlashOpens in new window ]
As he hailed operations in Washington and other cities as a “tremendous success,” Trump said crime in Minnesota was “way down”. He added: “Both Gov Walz and I want to make it better!”
In a statement, Walz’s office described the call as “productive” and said the two men had discussed broader issues that have been at the centre of the state’s complaints about the crackdown.
According to the governor’s office, Walz told Trump that impartial investigations into the two killings were needed, and he called for a reduction in the number of federal agents in Minnesota. Trump agreed to ensure a fair investigation and to look into reducing the number of agents, the governor’s office said.
But even as Trump tried to mend fences with Walz, Leavitt continued the administration’s previous strategy of arguing that the governor and Democrats in Minnesota bore the blame for the chaos. “This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota for weeks,” she said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.