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Kristi Noem Caught in Embarrassing Double Standard Over ICE Shooting

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CNN’s Jake Tapper torpedoed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s flimsy defense of the ICE agent who killed Renee Good.

During an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, Noem could only proffer a mealy-mouthed response after being bombarded by footage of rioters violently attacking law enforcement officers at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Donald Trump had claimed earlier Sunday that the use of deadly force was justified because Good was “disrespectful” of law enforcement.

“Would any of those officers have been justified in shooting and killing the people causing them physical harm?” Tapper pressed, referring to the January 6 footage.

“Every single situation is going to, um, rely on the situation those officers are on,” Noem replied. “That they know that when people are putting hands on them, when they are using weapons against them, when they are physically harming them, that they have the authority to arrest those individuals.”

Tapper pointed out that Trump had pardoned every single one of those rioters.

“And every single one of these investigations comes in the full context of the situation on the ground,” Noem said. “That’s one thing that President Trump has been so focused on. Is making sure that when we’re out there, we don’t pick and choose which situations are, and which laws are enforced, and which ones aren’t.”

The exasperated host then had to point out that the footage he’d just shown proved the opposite.

“I just showed you video of people attacking law enforcement officers, undisputed proof, undisputed evidence, and I just said President Trump pardoned all of them. And you just said, ‘President Trump is enforcing all the laws equally.’ It’s just not true,” Tapper said. “There’s a different standard for law enforcement officials being attacked if they’re being attacked by Trump supporters. We just saw that.”

Noem could only offer up word salad. “This individual, and these instances, and these investigations all have to be taken, and done, and done correctly in context of every situation that is happening on the ground,” she said.

It’s genuinely difficult to believe she was picked for this job because someone thought she would be good on TV.

Noem claimed that immigration officers were focused on ensuring that they were “targeting the worst of the worst, and that we’re talking factually about each situation, and making sure that we’re bringing those perpetrators of violence back to justice.”

Of course, the killing of Renee Good demonstrates that they’re doing the exact opposite.

Good was not the “worst of the worst,” but a mother of three who Noem leapt to claim was a so-called “domestic terrorist.” The only person who “perpetrated” violence was Jonathan Ross, the trigger-happy Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who shot a U.S. civilian three times, but there is no evidence he will face any consequences for his actions.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem apparently has found some morsel of humor in Renee Nicole Good’s death.

Noem flashed a small smile while speaking about Good’s killing during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday morning, apparently undisturbed by the fact that one of her agents called the 37-year-old mother a “fucking bitch” immediately after an agent shot her in the face several times.

“Is that Agent [Jonathan] Ross’s voice calling Renee Good a ‘fucking bitch’?” Tapper asked after playing cell phone footage of the incident that clearly captured the phrase.

“I can’t determine which one it is, but it could be, sir,” Noem replied, pulling her lips into a quick smirk as she finished her sentence.

TAPPER: Is that Agent Ross's voice calling Renee Good a "fucking bitch"?

KRISTI NOEM: I can't determine which one it is, but it could be, sir pic.twitter.com/0Qc7mtMAUQ

The footage Tapper showed of the shooting last week depicts a masked federal agent’s vantage point of the lethal encounter and offered an additional perspective of the extrajudicial killing.

The exchange, as captured in the video, begins with a 360-degree shot of Good’s red Honda Pilot, and ends after multiple gunshots ring out, when her SUV careens into a utility pole and several parked vehicles.

In a paltry attempt to defend the agents’ deadly actions, Trump officials have claimed that Good was trying to kill an ICE agent by moving her vehicle—an allegation that is readily disputed by other video footage of the incident, which shows that Ross sidesteps the front bumper as it begins to push forward.

Still, that hasn’t stopped the administration from branding Good as a domestic terrorist. In their repeated defense of her needless death, Trump officials have also suggested that defying the barked orders of masked individuals who evade identification is a crime punishable by death.

Hundreds of protests have since taken place in cities across America, protesting Good’s death and the needless violence employed by ICE—an agency that has apparently morphed into Donald Trump’s personal gestapo—as well as the administration’s harrowing response to the killing.

Donald Trump is pushing for the United States to take over Greenland, telling reporters on Air Force One Sunday that “one way or the other, we’re going to have Greenland.”

Trump has been eager to take over the Danish territory, located in the north Atlantic Ocean, since his first term in office. Now, emboldened by U.S. military action to depose Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and a lack of pushback from Republicans in Congress, Trump thinks the time is right for this ill-advised venture.

“If we don’t take Greenland, Russia or China will, and I’m not letting that happen,” Trump said, adding that he would love to make a deal with Denmark to prevent military action because “it’s easier,”........

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