Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche claimed that no one is interpreting the Trump administration’s labeling of Alex Pretti’s actions as domestic terrorism by the legal definition, despite Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying exactly that.
“I don’t think anybody thinks that they were comparing what happened on Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism. What we saw was a very violent altercation, and we — I am not going to prejudge the facts,” Blanche said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning.
Yet on Saturday, Noem directly compared Pretti’s actions to the legal definition of domestic terrorism.
“When you perpetuate violence against a government because of ideological reasons and for reasons to resist and perpetuate violence, that is the definition of domestic terrorism. This individual, who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers, committed an act of domestic terrorism. That’s the facts,” Noem said.
Just hours after the shooting, top White House aide Stephen Miller called Alex Pretti a “domestic terrorist” who “tried to assassinate federal law endorsement.”
According to US code, domestic terrorism involves actions that are “dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State” and “appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”
Blanche’s comments on Fox today also contradict what he said earlier in the interview, urging caution as an investigation plays out.
“We always investigate any conduct like this, any shooting like this,” he said, “We’ll get to the bottom of everything that happened. But it is extraordinarily important that we do not jump to conclusions about anything that happened on Saturday morning.”
