Some congressional Republicans are carefully, cautiously, equivocally mad.
Joe Perticone at The Bulwark:
Cracks in the coalition?
In the Trump era, it’s extraordinarily rare for elected Republicans to voice clear moral objections to the actions of the administration. Doing so is virtually a form of career suicide.1 But if you develop an ear for the subtleties of the Republican congressional patois, you can start to pick up an awful lot about how much disapproval is being quietly expressed within GOP circles—including when some of them have reached some kind of breaking point. The killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents in Minnesota on Saturday, as well as the administration’s false, accusatory, and easily debunked account of the incident, has pushed some GOP lawmakers over the edge. House and Senate Republicans have broken party decorum and called for investigations into the shooting and even for ICE to leave Minnesota. Committee chairmen in both chambers have demanded that agency officials swiftly report to Capitol Hill for questioning.2
“Well, right now the video looks pretty damning,” Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), who is no moderate, said in an interview. “Obviously, we have to wait to get all the videos in before we make a final conclusion.” “A lot of these ICE officials or Border Patrol people are not prepared for this sort of thing,” Grothman added. “We have people coming from far and wide to demonstrate and disrupt things, which is just a recipe for disaster. But I think in the future, the Department of Homeland Security is going to have to do a better job of educating their people to make sure this sort of murder doesn’t result.” Sens. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) and Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) each called for an investigation into Pretti’s killing. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), a former Homeland Security Committee chairman, said he was “troubled” by Pretti’s killing, adding, ”As an attorney and former federal prosecutor, I believe a thorough investigation is necessary—both to get to the bottom of these incidents and to maintain Americans’ confidence in our justice system.”
“We must have a transparent, independent investigation into the Minnesota shooting, and those responsible—no matter their title—must be held accountable,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) said. “Officials who rush to judgment before all the facts are known undermine public trust and the law-enforcement mission.” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) went so far as to call the killing a violation of the Second Amendment, an angle that remains too sharp for most of his Republican colleagues to pick up. Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, called a hearing for DHS oversight and requested testimony from acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, Border Patrol Commissioner Rodney Scott, and Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joseph Edlow. A hearing is set for February 10. Across the Capitol, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, demanded testimony from the same officials. Meanwhile, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March—still quite a ways away. Enough GOP lawmakers have spoken up about the Pretti killing that their colleagues who have remained silent no longer have the cover normally afforded by moving with the political herd. The most notably silent Republicans are in the party’s House and Senate leadership. In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been mostly offline since posting about meeting with Erika Kirk on Saturday; he has not posted about Pretti. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) did not weigh in on the shooting, but called Trump’s deployment of White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota Monday “a positive development.” Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), the chair of the House Republican Conference, coauthored an op-ed for Newsmax with fellow Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) declaring victory for Trump’s approach to immigration policy in his first year. The op-ed, published yesterday, did not mention Minnesota, and McLain hasn’t posted a link to it on any of her social channels.
In recent days, the GOP’s message on ICE has been less than unified.
