The firehose of the Trump regime’s gaslighting, lawlessness and abuses can leave us bewildered and frustrated. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the recent actions of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), run by one of Trump’s most extreme loyalists, Kristi Noem.
There’s a spotlight now on DHS because of the murder of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of one of its ICE agents, Jonathan Ross. In response, Noem has cranked up the brazen denials, handed federal agents carte blanche, and hidden from the public the truth of what happened and is happening.
This is her version of “flooding the zone”—a tactic advanced by Steve Bannon that posits that the media and the American public won’t be able to keep up with a torrent of lies and attacks. Over time, this new reality will become normalized, and we’ll be left stumbling from crisis to crisis.
We can prevent this. But to succeed, we first need to see through what’s happening and understand how Noem is systematically laying the groundwork for more chaos, lawlessness and violence.
It sometimes takes a horrific shock to provide clarity and insight. That has happened in the hours and days following the murder of Renee Good. Her killing provides a key to understanding the DHS game: * fabrication* to manipulate the public narrative,
We know Noem and DHS are doing all of these things, but it’s not enough to name them. We also need to dig into what’s driving this.
In a courtroom, if a lawyer can prove to the jury that a witness has lied, that tends to sour the jury against that person. The fancy Latin term for this principle is “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus,” meaning “false in one thing, false in everything.”
This maxim got formalized, somewhat, in federal jury instructions, which typically say,
If you find that a witness knowingly made a false statement while testifying, you may choose to disbelieve the rest of that witness’s testimony, or you may accept such parts as you believe are true and give them the weight you think they deserve.
For a good lawyer, it only takes one instance of a witness caught in a lie to convince the jury to be skeptical of the entire spun story, and rightly so. After all, the point of lying is to hide the truth—which usually means the witness doesn’t want people to know the truth.
That’s all straightforward in the courtroom, but we’ve somehow lost the thread in the court of public opinion. Noem has gone before cameras and lied about nearly everything, and she rarely gets called out on it. Jake Tapper of CNN managed to do so the other day, to limited effect:
But even when she is confronted, as here, no one has asked the follow-up question: “If you’re lying about this, why should we believe anything you say?”
And importantly, very few are asking why Noem is lying so brazenly. There is a method to it, after all. The strategy is the reverse of what ordinary liars do. For Noem, it’s “false in everything, accountable for none.”
The sheer volume of her lies, and the intensity with which she delivers them, leaves us stuck on the idea that she’s a disgusting and mendacious person—in much the same way we judge her boss, Donald Trump. After enough time with her lies, we are so exhausted that we stop asking why she spews them so often and so hard.
I have three observations.
First, Noem knows that there are no actual consequences for lying to the public. At most, the press might point it out, but she will just keep lying. To understand her mentality, you need only compare her testimony under oath before Congress—where instead of lying outright, she evaded and refused to answer. Lack of accountability means freedom to lie. But, importantly, it’s also a signal to everyone below her in the Department that utter mendacity is not only acceptable but expected.
Second, Noem’s top priority is her boss, Donald Trump. She is saying exactly what she knows Dear Leader wants to hear. The truth is therefore irrelevant. Rather, Noem wants to demonstrate first and foremost that she is a loyalist and a fighter, so she can keep her job. Indeed, the more brazen the lie, the higher marks she expects to receive from Trump.
Third, Noem is training and testing the MAGA base. She understands that she needs to deliver official propaganda and provide personal examples of how to reject the truth of what we the people are seeing. In this, she is an accomplished acolyte and mouthpiece of the cult’s leader. After all, the more outlandish the lie, the higher the bar of loyalty for MAGA cult followers. In this, Orwell was right:
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
George Orwell, 1984.
Keep all of this in mind whenever Noem goes before cameras and begins to serve lie after lie. Remember why she is showing others in DHS that she is free to lie, the man she is really performing for, and what culture she is inculcating with Trump’s followers.
It isn’t enough for Noem and DHS to reject facts. They must also reject any obligation to be bound by them.
Following exhaustive analysis of the videos showing various angles of Good’s murder by Ross, a consensus began to emerge from professional law enforcement experts. No matter what one thinks about Ross’s claims of “self defense” in those fateful moments—was Good trying to flee as it appeared, or was she “ramming her car” into him as Noem claimed?—the fact that Ross first circled in front of her car with gun drawn was clearly against Department rules and set up the situation for what it horrifyingly became.
This may seem a technical point. But it turns out, there is a long history at DHS regarding this very question of officers placing themselves in front of vehicles and in harm’s way.
Law enforcement officials understand stopping drivers in their vehicles presents a uniquely dangerous circumstance with potential deadly consequences. Should the driver attempt to flee, and the officer is in the way, the vehicle itself could become a “weapon” that could then be cited as a reason to fire upon them in “self defense.”
That is, of course, precisely the question around which Good’s murder revolves. But this isn’t the first time DHS officers have faced this question. In 2013, an internal review found that CBP officers repeatedly and unnecessarily stepped in front of vehicles to justify shooting at their drivers.
Per The Nation,
The review was completed in February 2013 by the Police Executive Research Forum, a nonprofit that develops best practices for law enforcement use-of-force policies. It examined sixty-seven use-of-force incidents by federal border agents near the US-Mexico border that resulted in nineteen deaths.
The report recommended that agents “get out of the way … as opposed to intentionally assuming a position in front of such vehicles.” This is common sense. As the review noted,
It is suspected that in many vehicle shooting cases, the subject driver was attempting to flee from the agents who intentionally put themselves into the exit path of the vehicle, thereby exposing themselves to additional risk and creating justification for the use of deadly force….
It should be recognized that a half-ounce (200-grain) bullet is unlikely to stop a 4,000-pound moving vehicle, and if the driver … is disabled by a bullet, the vehicle will become a totally unguided threat… Obviously, shooting at a moving vehicle can pose a risk to bystanders including other agents.
The report recommended CBP adopt police policies, used in most jurisdictions, that bar officers from firing at a moving vehicle unless deadly force is being used “by means other than a moving vehicle.” This would include, for example, if the driver was firing a gun from the vehicle.
In March of 2014, a new directive in response to the report clarified Department policy:
[T]he new directive restricts Border Patrol agents from shooting at moving vehicles merely fleeing from agents. It also states that “agents should not place themselves in the path of a moving vehicle or use their body to block a vehicle’s path.”
Jonathan Ross was a member of the CBP at the time of this controversy and the publication of this new directive. He was no doubt well aware of the rule change for CBP, which consumed the attention of the agency for two years. And he knew or should have known better than to circle in front of Good’s car, gun drawn.
DHS’s policies on the use of deadly force and moving vehicles were updated on February 6, 2023 and generally conform to CPB’s rules. Of particular relevance are the sections on “Use of Safe Tactics” for law enforcement officers (LEOs) and the “Discharge of Firearms at Moving Vehicles”:
DHS LEOs should seek to employ tactics and techniques that effectively bring an incident under control while promoting the safety of LEOs and the public,and that minimize the risk of unintended injury or serious property damage. DHS LEOs should also
(Emphasis added.)avoid intentionally and unreasonably placing themselves in positions in which they have no alternative to using deadly force.DHS LEOs are prohibited from discharging firearms at the operator of a moving vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or other conveyance unless the use of deadly force against the operator is justified under the standards articulated elsewhere in this policy. Before using deadly force under these circumstances, the LEO must take into consideration the hazards that may be posed to law enforcement and innocent bystanders by an out-of-control conveyance.
A responsible DHS leader would have awaited the results of an investigation and at least acknowledged that, based on all available video evidence, Ross had disobeyed rules and protocols by placing himself in front of Good’s vehicle. This made it impossible for Good to flee without him being able to claim he shot her in self-defense.
But Noem ignored these rules and instead insisted that Good was at fault and had “rammed” her vehicle into Ross. Never mind that this didn’t happen, and never mind that he shouldn’t have been in front of the vehicle at all.
She also insisted that Ross was just following his training. If so, and that’s a big if, that training did not follow DHS’s own rules and policies.
So why did Noem ignore the plain rule that Ross had violated and immediately place the blame on Good instead? The answer is chilling.
Through her denials, Noem signaled to all Department agents now deployed that the rules don’t matter. And if Ross can brazenly disobey this rule with no consequences—one that was the subject of an actual internal review and of significant department debate—then which other rules can agents disobey with impunity? Some of them? All of them?
With no one willing to enforce the guardrails that the Department itself put in place, and with leadership actively signaling that the rules do not apply, we are already seeing bad consequences play out in Minneapolis and around the country. ICE and CBP agents are currently stopping anyone they believe might be undocumented, often based on nothing but skin color. They are also now regularly stopping, assaulting and arresting U.S. citizens merely for speaking to, observing and filming them—all of which are constitutionally protected.
Agents are also now incentivized to place themselves into dangerous circumstances, such as in front of vehicles, in order to justify escalation and the use of force, including deadly force. The natural and predictable result will be more violent encounters with the public, including fatal ones.
Escalation, public anger and violence ultimately serve the regime, or so it believes. If things grow chaotic enough, Trump can label the situation a rebellion against the authority of the U.S. government and invoke the Insurrection Act. With the military in place to quell the “rebellion,” he can seek to hold major U.S. cities under a police state indefinitely, in much the way he has done with Washington D.C. and is now attempting in Minneapolis.
I believe this ploy will ultimately fail. The U.S. military does not have the capacity (or desire) to control and police multiple cities at once, and the federal courts and local authorities will not long countenance it. Indeed, when whatever “emergency” is past, the White House will be hard pressed to justify a continued military presence, even under the Insurrection Act.
But this does not mean Trump won’t attempt a militarized police state, as he has in various forms in other urban centers, from Los Angeles to Chicago. The first step to creating the conditions for such a police state is to unleash ICE in a form that is lawless and unaccountable. From there, he and his advisors hope violence will ensue, justifying emergency decrees, a greater crackdown and ultimately a full military presence.
When DHS refuses to hold its own agents to its own most basic rules, we need to understand how they intend this all to ultimately go. This practice goes hand in hand with Noem’s next play.
Earlier, I mentioned that a responsible DHS leader would await a thorough investigation before leaping to conclusions about fault or justifiability. Noem, of course, not only did not await an investigation but helped actively thwart one.
Video footage indicated that critical physical evidence, such as the vehicle itself, was not being handled in a manner consistent with an intent to preserve evidence.
Reports soon emerged that DHS may not have been taking appropriate steps to preserve evidence, including any footage of the incident. Democrats in Congress were concerned enough to raise their requests for evidence preservation directly with Noem and her second in command, Todd Lyons. They demanded, on January 9th, that DHS “ensure a complete and credible investigation” and “take the following steps immediately and provide written confirmation within 48 hours of receipt of this letter” of the following:
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Confirm that DHS/ICE has issued a directive to preserve evidence to all participating personnel, covering relevant records and materials described below.
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Provide the complete, unedited body camera footage of the officer who discharged a firearm and the body camera footage of all DHS personnel, including ICE, at or near the incident scene (including any personnel who approached the vehicle before and after shots were fired).
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Confirm whether DHS has referred the matter to be investigated by the DHS Office of the Inspector General, ICE Office of Professional Responsibility, and the Department of Justice.
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Confirm how DHS will collaborate with state or local agencies in carrying out the investigation.
DHS, as it has with nearly every official request from Congress, has apparently ignored this demand.
The federal government, including the DOJ through the U.S. Attorney’s office in Minnesota, has been uncooperative. According to Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, there is now “deep mistrust” over an investigation into Good’s shooting, given that federal officials are not even allowing Minnesota authorities access to the evidence.
“What I was pushing back on from the very beginning was a narrative that had jumped to that conclusion right from the get-go,” Mayor Frey said. “When you’ve got a federal administration th…
