loading . . . Trumpâs Secret Police Shot a Citizen. Then Damning New Info Emerged. As President Donald Trumpâs consolidation of authoritarian power escalates, he and his allies have been employing undisguised state-sponsored propaganda to a degree unmatched by any president in modern times. This much, one hopes, is broadly understoodâeven if a startling number of Americans seem unperturbed by it. But hereâs something thatâs less discussed: This sort of industrial-scale deception would be far more difficult to pull off if Republicans hadnât wholly crippled Congressâs oversight function on Trumpâs behalf.
All this is driven home by an interesting new letter that Senator Chris Murphy sent Friday to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about a horrifying incident that unfolded during Trumpâs occupation of Chicago. A federal agent shot a woman multiple times after she allegedly menaced the agents with her car. Marimar Martinez, who didnât have life-threatening injuries, is a U.S. citizen.
This incident has been subjected to a barrage of state-manufactured misinformation, and it turns out that MAGA influencer Laura Loomer also was involved in that effort. In response, Murphyâs letter calls on Noem to account for all these official deceptions, and to come clean on whether government information was improperly leaked to Loomer to assist in them.
In particular, just after the shooting, DHS put out a statement claiming that the agents in question had been âboxed in by 10 carsâ and that Martinezâs vehicle ârammedâ theirs. The statement also suggests she threatened the agents with a âsemi-automatic weapon.â All this âforcedâ an agent to shoot Martinez, who then âdrove herself to the hospital.â DHS added that sheâd previously doxed agents online. In short, the shooting was wholly justified: The victim was the one doing the terrorizingâof law enforcement.
Yet these claims are undermined by the criminal complaint against Martinez. It only mentions two cars menacing the agents, not 10. It doesnât mention her gun, let alone her threatening of the agents with one. It says she was taken to the hospital by ambulance. And as the _Chicago Sun-Times_ reports, Martinezâs lawyer says body-cam footage even contradicts the claim that she directly threatened the officers with her vehicle and shows that the agent said, âDo something, bitch,â before opening fire.
Hereâs where Loomer enters the chat. Shortly after the incident, she tweeted out pictures of Martinezâs carâcomplete with bullet holes in the windshield from the agentâs shotsâwhich Loomer claimed she obtained from a âDHS source.â Loomer also echoed the (now undermined) claim that Martinez âdrove herself to the hospital.â
Murphy now wants DHS to account for these discrepancies. In his letter, the Connecticut Democrat runs through the problems with the official account, calling on Noem to âcorrect the public record by redacting the misleading and inaccurate facts.â
âWhen the government misrepresents or lies about events involving the safety and wellbeing of federal law enforcement, it erodes public trust, making their jobs much harder,â Murphy continues.
Murphyâs letter also demands that DHS turn over all body-cam footage captured by federal officers involved in the incident. He demands to know whether DHS officials had previously looked into Martinez, to test the claim that she doxed the agents.
Murphy also asks if DHS is internally investigating whether the agent used excessive force, and asks the agency to detail its current use-of-force policies. He presses DHS to âprovide details of how Ms. Loomer received these photosâ and to indicate âwhether DHS is investigating the leak of alleged criminal evidence to Ms. Loomer.â
Now ask yourself this: Is it remotely within the realm of possibility that Republicans in Congress will ask questions like these? Of course it isnât. As a result, it will be all the easier for Noem to simply ignore Murphyâs demands.
Now, to be clear, itâs possible that Martinez did commit serious crimes. She has been indicted for attempted murder, though the judge has released her and another man involved from custody for now. Itâs possible she will be convicted. A jury should decide the matter.
But none of that justifies the level of official deception weâve seen around this incident. And it very well may emerge that none of it justifies the force unleashed on Martinez by this federal agent.
In this regard, Murphyâs questions about whether DHS is reviewing the incidentâand what DHS policy is right now on excessive forceâdeserve special attention. As Iâve previously detailed, the public is unaware of just how atrophied the mechanisms of accountability have become for DHS agents, at a time when the war theyâre waging in U.S. citiesâsometimes against Americansâis boiling over daily.
Yet letâs be clear: We may never know the full answers to those questions about how DHS is handling accountability for its agents at this fraught moment. Because Republicans wonât ask them. And while the criminal justice process might prove illuminating on this incident, DHS may never correct its falsehoods about it or divulge anything to Congress shedding light on what really happened. Because Republicans wonât demand it.
We constantly talk about how the congressional GOP is enabling Trumpâs lawlessness, whether itâs his likely illegal impoundment of funds, his military deployments to conduct domestic law enforcement, his extrajudicial killings in the Caribbean Sea, and more. But this GOP abdication is also facilitating the spread of state-sponsored disinformation.
The people are awash in propaganda and lies about what their own government is doing to them, with Congress utterly checked out of the fact-finding business and increasing signs that the free press is retreating in the face of the authoritarian onslaught. It is falling on Democrats to ask the questions that need askingâand even to highlight the unnerving reality underlying all of it, that our government is engaged in such remarkably concerted deception of its own citizens. This Murphy letter is a stab in that direction. But we need a whole lot more. And letâs face it: Time is running out. https://newrepublic.com/article/201957/trump-chicago-secret-police-shot-woman-damning-info