Sen. Ron Johnson to MN AG Ellison: You Encouraged A Tragedy To Happen, Despicable To Watch You “Sit There And Smirk”
At a Senate hearing on Thursday, Senator Ron Johnson appeared to blame Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison for the fatal shootings of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota, saying state officials encouraged protests that led to their killing by federal agents, USA Today reported.
SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): I can’t imagine encouraging somebody that supported me politically to go and put themselves into harm’s way. I can’t imagine that. Particularly when you know that these law enforcement officials had been shot at, a couple of illegal immigrants inadvertently killed because people were shooting at ICE officers. Their vehicles have been rammed by some of these peaceful protesters, probably the trained activists. They’ve had rocks thrown at their vehicles. I can’t imagine encouraging people, put yourselves in harm’s way. Get out there and record that. I, as a government official, would have said, back off. Let us work with ICE. Let’s cooperate with them. Let’s see if we can’t de-escalate this. But Attorney General, you did the exact opposite. And two people are dead because you encouraged them to put themselves into harm’s way. And now you’re exploiting those two martyrs. That was a tragedy. It never should have happened. Now, we can investigate, but I can’t imagine being a law enforcement official where I know my colleagues had been shot at, their vehicles rammed, that their trained activists deployed. And by the way, we know at least one of those activists had a semi-automatic pistol with extra clips. So now you’re an ICE officer. You’re doing enforcement action. You’ve got a team behind you trying to protect you. You’ve got all these trained activists behind you. Is it any wonder they’re at hair trigger alert? A tragedy was going to happen and you encouraged it. And you ought to feel damn guilty about it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. [PAUSE] JOHNSON: Sit there and smirk. Smirk. It’s sick. It is despicable. MINNESOTA ATTORNEY GENERAL KEITH ELLISON (D): Are you asking me for comment, Senator? Because everything you said was untrue. It was a nice theatrical performance, but it was all lies.
