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National News
Speculation grows over who ICE hired to build ‘Trump’s army’: ‘That’s why they’re masked’
Speculation is growing in the wake of another fatal shooting in Minnesota that the Department of Homeland Security is hiring pardoned Jan. 6 rioters as immigration agents.
Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino confirmed that the two agents who shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti were already back on duty, but not in Minneapolis, and has refused to identify them. Journalists who have covered pro-Donald Trump militant groups suspect some of the agents involved in immigration crackdowns are drawn from those extremist ranks.
"Because I filmed the Proud Boys for years, because I was in Charlottesville and at the January 6 riot, and spent five months filming the ICE agents in Federal Plaza I’m convinced they are the same people," said independent visual journalist Sandi Bachom. "It’s impossible to find a whole new army of aggressive, violent, immature, Call to Duty Trump sycophants. That’s why they’re masked. People are gonna start figuring it out. That’s why he pardoned them all."
"I remember thinking when I got back from January 6, well Hitler had an army and Trump doesn’t," Bachom added. "He does now."
Trump pardoned about 1,500 defendants for Jan. 6-related offenses in one of his first official acts upon returning to the White House, and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) two weeks ago – following the shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by a veteran immigration agent – asked administration officials whether the Department of Homeland Security was actively recruiting pro-Trump extremists.
"The American people deserve to know how many of these violent insurrectionists have been given guns and badges by this Administration," Raskin wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "Who is hiding behind these masks? How many of them were among the violent rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th and were convicted of their offenses?"
Senate Democrats have threatened to withhold funding for DHS without major reforms to ICE, including a possible ban on masking, and state legislatures are advancing bills to ban federal agents from obscuring their identities while on duty, and the secrecy surrounding Pretti's killers has set off alarms about their actual identities.
"There is another, more disturbing prospect: Are ICE agents actual bad dudes the administration hired rapidly with no background checks — possibly criminal (maybe pardoned J6ers?) — and the administration doesn’t want that information getting out?" wondered journalist Robert A. George. "IOW, the masks represent a LITERAL coverup. Now, we know this isn’t universally the case: Jonathan Ross who shot Renee Good is an ICE veteran. But the spiriting out of Minneapolis the agents who killed Alex Pretti is certainly…curious."
"This is purely speculation on my part, but hey, I didn’t call them domestic terrorists or anything," George added.
Their suspicions seemed to be shared by many others.
"Anyone else notice how the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oath Keepers, Patriot Front, etc. were always out there marching to support and protect law enforcement...until recently?" asked University of Washington biologist Carl T. Bergstrom. "They're never out there supporting ICE. It's so odd, like Superman and Clark Kent."
The Atlantic's Robert F. Worth spoke to an activist on the ground in Minneapolis who agreed.
"It became clear very quickly that ICE is the Proud Boys, the Boogaloo boys," said Dan, who trained as a legal observer but asked to keep his last name shielded. "They’ve given them uniforms and let them run wild."
National News
Melania humiliated as UK premiere of her movie gets single-digit ticket sales
Melania Trump's eponymous documentary flopped in its London debut.
UK cinema chain Vue's will premier "Melania" at 3:10 p.m. at its flagship Islington theater in London, but so far only one person has bought a ticket and just two tickets have sold for a 6 p.m. showing – undercutting President Donald Trump's hype claims, reported LBC.
"MELANIA, the Movie, is a MUST WATCH," Trump posted Tuesday on Truth Social. "Get your tickets today — Selling out, FAST!"
In truth, according to Vue chief executive Tim Richards, UK ticket sales are "soft," and the film – for which Amazon MGM Studios paid a reported $40 million – is projected to make just $5 million during its opening weekend, and trade publication Boxoffice Pro projects less than half that haul.
"I’d be amazed if box office gets reported on this title," one industry insider told The Mirror, adding that the film’s distributors might be paying a fee to cinemas to screen the movie, an established practice known as “four-walling.”
Documentary filmmaker Stefano Da Frè, who was not involved in the film, told CNN that "data-driven" Amazon would not have invested that much expecting to lose money.
“With all their tools, all their AI, Amazon Web Services — they didn’t just come up with that number randomly,” Da Frè said. “They believe, through their metrics, that it’s worth that amount.”
A studio spokesperson backed that assertion and disputed that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had sunk that much money on a "vanity project" for the president's wife.
“We licensed the film for one reason and one reason only — because we think customers are going to love it," the Amazon MGM Studios spokesperson said.
"Melania" will open in 1,400 theaters Friday in the U.S. and in more than 27 other countries, and Amazon spent a reported $35 million on marketing the documentary, and social media posts have suggested that many theaters will be empty as the film rolls.
