A senior Justice Department official struck a notably more cautious tone on Monday than the Department of Homeland Security had one day earlier over the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and U.S. citizen who was killed by a Border Patrol agent during an enforcement operation in Minnesota.
One day after the shooting of Pretti, who was armed during a physical confrontation with Customs and Border Protection agents Saturday morning, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche emphasized the need for restraint even as other Trump administration officials publicly assigned blame to Pretti and framed the shooting as necessary to stop a broader deadly attack on federal agents.
FOX & FRIENDS: Do the actions of Alex Pretti amount to domestic terrorism?
BLANCHE: Look, it’s an investigation, so I’m not going to prejudge
FOX: It doesn’t appear to most of the country to have met that definition
BLANCHE: I don’t think anybody thinks they were comparing… pic.twitter.com/kkHFADtukS
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 26, 2026
“You cannot look at a 10-second video and judge what happened,” Blanche said during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. While defending the actions of the immigration agents involved, Blanche stressed that video clips circulating online do not capture the full context of the encounter. “That’s exactly why you have to have an investigation,” he said.
Blanche notably contradicted the words of DHS officials, including Secretary Kristi Noem, who said Saturday that Pretti’s actions mirrored those of “domestic terrorism.”
“I don’t think anybody thinks they were comparing what happened Saturday to the legal definition of domestic terrorism,” Blanche said. “I’m not describing it as anything except for a tragedy.”
Following Pretti’s death on Saturday, Noem and other officials moved swiftly to condemn him, with some labeling Pretti as someone who “committed an act of domestic terrorism.”
Kristi Noem is a complete ignoramus. If getting in a scuffle with federal agents makes someone a “domestic terrorist,” then January 6 must’ve been the biggest “terrorist attack” in American history pic.twitter.com/7VAlPu78Jr
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 25, 2026
Gregory Bovino, a top official overseeing Border Patrol operations, told CNN’s State of the Union that “the suspect put himself in that situation,” adding that “the victims are the Border Patrol agents there,” as video of the shooting played onscreen.
BASH: It feels as though you’re blaming the victim here
BOVINO: The victims are the Border Patrol agents. I’m not blaming the Border Patrol agents. The victims are the Border Patrol agents. pic.twitter.com/rjmB7bOzrn
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 25, 2026
FBI Director Kash Patel echoed that sentiment on Fox News: “You do not get to attack law enforcement officials in this country without any repercussions.”
Multiple videos show Pretti restrained on the ground in the seconds before he was shot. Bovino claimed it appeared that Pretti intended to inflict “maximum damage and massacre law enforcement,” assertions that additional footage has called into question.
President Donald Trump avoided directly addressing Pretti’s death in public remarks on Sunday, though he praised allies who defended federal agents on television. Instead, Trump used social media to repeat claims that Minnesota officials were engaged in “a Criminal COVER UP of the massive Financial Fraud that has gone on!”
The shooting marked the second time this month that federal agents fatally shot a U.S. citizen during immigration enforcement actions in Minneapolis. Both times appeared to involve activists attempting to obstruct immigration enforcement operations.
On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was killed by an immigration officer. Trump and other senior officials quickly defended that shooting, asserting Good had hit the officer with her vehicle, which prompted him to need medical attention. Blanche said on Jan. 14 that the DOJ would not open a criminal civil rights investigation into the shooting.
Although Blanche, a former personal attorney to Trump, emerged Sunday urging patience before assigning blame to Pretti, he sharply criticized Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey for failing to prevent the confrontation. Last week, the DOJ opened an investigation and served subpoenas to both officials as part of a federal investigation into whether they are obstructing the federal immigration effort codenamed Operation Metro Surge, which began on Dec. 1, 2025.
Behind the scenes, federal law enforcement sources told Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin Sunday evening that DHS’s public messaging has caused growing frustration within the administration. According to Melugin, sources said recent claims by officials that Pretti intended a massacre were unsupported by video evidence and have damaged credibility, morale, and public trust.
DHS defended its statements in a response to Fox News, saying Pretti committed a federal crime while armed and obstructing an active operation. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt responded affirmatively on Monday afternoon when asked whether the president remains confident in Noem’s leadership of DHS.
Meanwhile, Walz penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Monday arguing the administration has been misleading the public about the state’s cooperation with the federal government and underscoring that protests prompted by the surge aren’t “making anyone any safer.”
I spoke to the President earlier. We had a productive conversation and I explained to him that his staff doesn’t have their facts straight about Minnesota. My thoughts in the Wall Street Journal:https://t.co/Prlt2mu8Bx pic.twitter.com/XFJyv6V1yH
— Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) January 26, 2026
“Some of the administration’s claims are ridiculous on their face. For example: It claims that 1,360 non-U.S. citizens are in Minnesota prisons. The truth: Our total state prison population is roughly 8,000, and only 207 of them are noncitizens,” Walz wrote, adding that a Minnesota Public Radio investigation found that “Most of the people on the list had been immediately transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody at the end of time served in Minnesota prisons.”
Critics of Walz’s policies have argued that Minnesota city and county jails continue to defy ICE detainers, while state prisons have honored those detainers. The Washington Examiner contacted DHS for a response to Walz’s comments in the op-ed and for a response to criticism over officials’ characterization of the Pretti shooting.
TRUMP SAYS HE AND WALZ ARE ON ‘SIMILAR WAVELENGTH’ AFTER PHONE CALL OVER ICE OPERATIONS IN MINNESOTA
Amid tensions over the state and federal operations, Trump announced Monday that he had a “very good call” with Walz and said border czar Tom Homan would travel to Minnesota on Monday. Leavitt said Homan will be the “point person” in the state going forward.
“Mr. Bovino is a wonderful man, and he’s a great professional. He is very much going to continue CBP throughout and across the country,” Leavitt said Monday, adding, “Mr. Homan will be the main point of contact on the ground in Minneapolis.”
