Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche went on Fox & Friends and called out Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for what he labeled a “bald-faced lie” after the deadly Minneapolis shooting, making clear the Justice Department rejects the kind of inflammatory accusations being tossed around in Minnesota’s political swamp. Blanche’s blunt rebuke came as the nation watched footage and the narrative spun by state officials collide in real time over the killing of Alex Pretti.
What happened in Minneapolis is ugly and straightforward: federal Border Patrol agents shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti during a chaotic encounter amid protests, and multiple bystander videos captured a rapid, violent sequence that raised immediate and serious questions about who did what and when. Those videos — analyzed by major outlets and investigators — show the shooting unfolded in seconds and appear to contradict parts of the administration’s initial account, fueling outrage and legal action.
Minnesota’s elected Democrats rushed to seize the moment, accusing federal agents of destroying evidence and trying to shut down federal transparency, prompting a courtroom order to preserve materials tied to the incident. Yet while local politicians grandstand about “evidence tampering,” videos and sworn witness statements circulated publicly and paint a far more complicated picture than the hyperbolic rhetoric would allow.
Blanche was right to call those claims out as reckless — the deputy AG emphasized that DOJ and federal investigators take shootings seriously and that finger-pointing from partisan state actors only inflames a volatile situation. Conservatives should applaud anyone in the federal government who refuses to let political operatives weaponize tragedy into partisan theater while investigations are ongoing.
Make no mistake: Minnesota’s attorney general and city leaders do not look like sober investigators here; they look like politicians more interested in headlines than facts, even filing suits and public demands that read like campaign press releases. The state’s legal maneuvers against DHS and ICE underscore how nationalized this fight has become, but they do not absolve local officials of responsibility for the chaos on their streets.
This is also about law and order. Federal agents showed up to enforce the law in a city where civic leadership has repeatedly failed to maintain public safety, and then politicians on the left weaponized the aftermath instead of calming the streets. If we care about protecting citizens and those who put themselves between danger and civilians, we should insist on full, transparent investigations — not immediate, partisan convictions shouted from the rooftops.
The broader backdrop is Washington’s aggressive “Operation Metro Surge,” which has turned Minneapolis into ground zero for a political fight over enforcement and civic control, and that context matters when local officials rush to indict the motives of men and women in uniform. Americans deserve officers and agents who are supported while allegations are examined, not abandoned to the mob because a governor or mayor sees political advantage.
The bottom line for patriotic, hardworking Americans is simple: demand accountability, demand evidence, and demand an end to the performative politics that make our streets less safe. Stand with investigators who will follow the facts, and hold the opportunists who fan the flames politically accountable at the ballot box.
