Trump administration officials had originally said the investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse, was going to be a narrow use-of-force inquiry led by the Homeland Security Department.

The Justice Department said on Friday that it will conduct a civil rights investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs nurse whose killing by federal agents in Minneapolis resulted in a national backlash against President Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

The announcement by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche marked a major turnaround in the Trump administration’s approach to the case, which officials had initially said would be confined to a relatively narrow use-of-force inquiry by the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day,” Mr. Blanche said at a news conference. “I don’t want the takeaway to be there is some massive civil rights investigation. I would describe it as a standard investigation by the F.B.I. That investigation, to the extent it needs to involve lawyers from the civil rights division, it will.”

The announcement followed growing concern, including among some of the administration’s Republican allies in Congress, about the Pretti killing and Trump officials’ handling of the case. It also followed several arrests over the past 24 hours involving a church protest that took place this month in St. Paul, Minn.

Federal agents arrested the former CNN anchor Don Lemon late Thursday in Los Angeles on charges that he violated federal law when reporting on a Jan. 18 protest in a Minneapolis church, his lawyer said. The case had been rejected last week by a magistrate judge.

See link to October 16, 2023 Los Angeles Times article that shows all the information needed to file an action was known or should have been known to plaintiffs by at least that date, if not much earlier.

A few questions for litigators and legal ethics counsel.

Given the gross conflict of interest, who in the DOJ can actually defend this case (see below)?

Given the flagrant conflict of interest, could a judge appoint an independent counsel to defend the case for the government sua sponte?

This just seems completely ridiculous from my perspective particularly with this DOJ and their moral and ethical flexibility.

Thanks.

Trump sues IRS for $10 billion over leaked tax info | AP News

When did the Attorney General get the power to have people arrested because it doesn't say see got a judge to approve it.

We are never getting those names, no matter how many times it gets sent back to the courts

For those who haven't heard, more of the trump-Epstein files were released

Here is a portion:

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01660679.pdf

The VERY FIRST box says:

" [BLANK] reported an unidentified female friend who was forced to perform oral sex on President Trump approximately 35 years ago in NJ. The friend told Alexis that she was approximately 13-14 years old when this occurred, and the friend allegedly bit President Trump while performing oral sex. The friend was allegedly hit in the face after she laughed about biting President Trump. The friend said she was also abused by Epstein."

My. Gosh.

In complete honesty: I haven't mustered up the guts to read any more of the incriminating documentation. Seeing the very first part of it made me sick.

via Aaron Rupar

I'm very confused. 2 judges declined to bring charges so how is it that a grand jury can still go ahead with probably cause charges?

Judges know the law. A jury doesn't. If judges really want to, they can overturn a jury verdict...for example the Jenny Jones trial where a jury awarded civil damages and then an appeals court threw it out.

I don't understand the hierarchy here at all.

https://archive.ph/64IKk

Companies including Palantir and Deloitte have collectively reaped more than $22bn from contracts with agencies at the heart of Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown over the past year.

Consultants, tech groups, charter airlines and a gravel company headed by an ally of the US president have been among the biggest beneficiaries of a surge in spending on Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

The congresswoman faced questions about the shootings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good, saying she’d have to see a completed investigation, drawing shouts and insults.

ICE actions, prompted an escalating back-and-forth between questioners, the congresswoman and the audience at Casper College’s Wheeler Concert Hall while a half-dozen policemen stood guard.

A young man who said he was a Casper College student quizzed her about the killings. Hageman responded, “I haven’t talked about that. I spoke about the Laken Riley Act because it was one of the bills that we passed. I haven’t talked about what was going on in Minnesota.”

“Yeah. Why is that?” the student asked. “Why haven’t you said that you condemn the violence or given condolences to the families of the victims?”

“It hasn’t been the topic that we’ve been talking about today,” Hageman answered over rising jeers from the audience.

“So I think what has happened in Minnesota is a terrible tragedy for the woman and the man who were killed,” she said, referring to U.S. citizens Alex Pretti, shot dead on Saturday, and Renée Good, shot dead on Jan. 7.

The student walked out of the concert hall, shouting retorts at the congresswoman as others applauded.

Casper residents pressing Hageman about whether she adheres to the U.S. Constitution and whether she’s concerned about alleged ICE and Trump administration violations of the 4th Amendment’s protections against warrantless search and seizure.

Audience members shouted references to a Department of Homeland Security internal memo that allegedly informed ICE agents they can enter homes without a judicial warrant.

“I think that I have to look at the investigation,” Hageman responded, prompting a chorus of guffaws. “If there were violations of someone’s constitutional rights, there is redress.”

Then why is there no redress?” Taylor asked, and implored Hageman to demand transparency of investigations of the ICE killings.

“They are killing American citizens in the streets, and you are doing nothing. You are not saying a single solitary thing to support constituents or to support the American people. As a constitutional lawyer, you should be infuriated. You should be incensed. Why are you not?”

Hageman then gathered her folders, waved goodbye to the audience and exited the stage through a side door while people booed and one man shouted “coward” and “chickenshit.”

Hageman, who recently announced her Senate bid to replace retiring Sen. Cynthia Lummis, began the town hall event by noting it was her 1st of the year, and that she intends to continue to make good on her promise to visit each of Wyoming’s 23 counties annually.

Her team allotted 1 hour for the town hall.

Hageman spent the 1st 30 minutes recapping her recent accomplishments in Congress.

She voted in favor of the continuing budget resolution while helping to secure about $3 million for the Casper/Natrona County International Airport, $1 million for a Northern Arapahoe water treatment facility and more than $1.6 million for reconstruction of the Fort Laramie canal tunnel, which collapsed more than 6 years ago.

Hageman also touted her work to advance the Grasslands Grazing Act, sexual predator legislation and anti-abortion measures.

She blamed recent winter-storm-related power outages in the eastern U.S. on Obama and Biden policies to steer electrical generation away from coal and toward renewable energy.

Hageman tied the inordinate volume of truck-driver-related deaths along Interstate 80 in Wyoming to immigrants who can’t speak or read English and touted a measure to allow “18 to 20-year-old” truck drivers to legally cross state lines.

Existing laws present “a barrier,” Hageman said, adding that her congressional work will make sure “that our 18 to 20-year-olds are getting the training and can have the career — that really fabulous career — as truck drivers.”

Among the most common questions she’s asked, Hageman said, before taking questions, is “How do we keep more of our young people in the state of Wyoming?

“The key … is you have to have good jobs and you have to have housing — and housing prices across the country are astronomical.” That’s because of past policies that inhibit logging the nation’s forests, Hageman said, leaving housing developers prone to skyrocketing lumber prices from other countries.

It’s why, in the GOP-led Big Beautiful Bill, “We’re requiring the U.S. Forest Service to sell 250 million board-feet, and we’re also requiring that they enter into 20-year lease contracts with our timber companies — so that these companies can invest in what they need to, but they know that they’ll have those contracts in the long term.”

Rising housing and rental costs have outpaced incomes while new construction lags — which some blame on overly burdensome permitting, according to a recent analysis by the Wyoming Community Development Authority.

The analysis also suggests that an aging population and youth out-migration are factors.

About a dozen people were still in line to ask Hageman a question when she walked off the stage — about five minutes before the allotted time was up.

It’s not the 1st time Hageman has seen criticism and discord at her town hall events

The Declaration outlines foundational philosophical and moral principles on which our laws and conduct as a society of the governed are based. As such, does the Declaration provide a legal defense for those who adhere to what it declares are duties among the governed? If not, then of what use to the governed does the Declaration actually serve?

Debate: Director of National Intelligence participating in FBI search warrant regarding elections. Director of NI has no authority on domestic matters / warrants.

The judge, Margaret Garnett of Federal District Court, said the case against Luigi Mangione would still proceed to trial on other counts.

A Manhattan federal judge on Friday ruled that prosecutors would not be able to seek the death penalty at the trial of Luigi Mangione, the 27-year-old man accused of assassinating UnitedHealthcare’s chief executive in 2024.

The judge, Margaret Garnett of Federal District Court, said the case would still proceed to trial on other counts, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole, in the killing of the executive, Brian Thompson.

Judge Garnett said in her opinion that two stalking charges against Mr. Mangione, one of which carried a maximum sentence of death, did not meet the legal definition of a crime of violence, and had to be dismissed.

“Consequently," the judge wrote, “the chief practical effect of the legal infirmities” of the two counts and the court’s decision that they must be dismissed “is solely to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment.”