Senior White House aide Stephen Miller said Tuesday that officials are evaluating why a Customs and Border Protection team in Minneapolis “may not have followed” proper protocols before Alex Pretty was fatally shot — a notable admission of possible wrongdoing by one of the Trump administration’s most influential and toughest operators in immigration enforcement.
Miller said in a statement to CNN that the White House “provided clear guidance to the Department of Homeland Security that additional personnel assigned to Minnesota for force protection should be used to conduct fugitive operations to establish a physical barrier between apprehending teams and vandals.”
“We are evaluating why the CBP team may not have followed that protocol,” he said.
For one of the administration’s most hawkish emissaries, the statement may mark one of the most significant shifts in messaging to date about Preeti’s shooting. After the shooting, Miller called the VA ICU nurse a “potential assassin,” while Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem claimed he “committed an act of domestic terrorism.”
However, the video soon showed Preeti being surrounded and disarmed by law enforcement officers before being shot dead. President Donald Trump on Tuesday directly contradicted Mueller’s characterization and said he heard no domestic terrorism rhetoric.
“DHS’s initial statement was based on on-the-ground reports from U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” Miller told CNN in a statement.
Hours after Tuesday’s statement, Miller took to social media to defend federal agents who arrest immigrants, saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents work “under the most adverse conditions imaginable,” adding that they are “tracked, hunted, stalked, surveilled, and viciously attacked on an hourly basis by organized and violent left-wing elements.”
Noem was in near constant contact with White House officials, including Miller, on the day of the shooting, people familiar with the matter told CNN.
Trump has privately defended an official the department said pulled the trigger (DHS has since said both officials were fired). Sources said multiple White House officials provided guidance to Noem on how she should talk about the shooting at a news conference that night, including suggesting — falsely, as it turned out — that Pretty had been “brandishing” a weapon. Axios first reported Miller’s involvement in the discussions.
Noem briefed White House officials on the defiant tone she planned to take, making it clear she would defend local agents. Sources said she and the White House were in lockstep at the time.
But now, the messages are being scrutinized as Trump tries to distance himself from those in his own administration. On Tuesday, the president struck a more conciliatory tone on the Minnesota shootings as he appeared to break with Noem and Miller.
CNN previously reported that some administration officials were deeply frustrated with the way controversial border officials Gregory Bovino and Noem handled the aftermath of the weekend’s deadly shooting. Trump spent hours Sunday and Monday watching news reports and was personally unhappy with the impression his administration was making, according to an official.
But despite the fallout, neither Miller’s nor Noem’s jobs are in jeopardy, multiple sources said. When it came to Mueller specifically, a White House official told CNN that Trump was “hesitant to fire someone who’s been here for weeks, let alone someone who’s been with him for over 10 years. It’s not even on his radar.” Trump said publicly on Tuesday that Noem would not resign, adding that she was “doing a great job.”
Trump said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday that he now plans to “de-escalate” the situation in Minnesota amid growing Republican unease over the shooting and its aftermath. He noted that he had sent border czar Tom Homan to replace Bovino as leader of the local operation.
“I don’t think it’s a step back, but it’s a small change,” Trump told Fox News in Iowa. “Everyone in this room has their own business and, you know, you have to change very little. You know Bovino is very nice, but he’s a very extroverted guy, and in some cases, that’s fine, and maybe it’s not good here.”
This story has been updated with additional information.
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