The Lies the Government Tells

The Administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has completely rewritten the rulebook of how government officials should act. We now have a government of trolls who prefer social media insults written on the level of 4chan posts over policy. Childish behavior has become standard, and grifting has been raised to an art form. But most importantly, the truth has absolutely no value to this group. Starting right at the top with the liar-in-chief himself, this administration has absolutely no regard for the truth. Trump and his appointees lie like they breathe. In the cult-like environment of the Trump administration, knowingly supporting obvious lies has become simply one more requirement of government service. To be a Trump official means being willing to debase yourself regularly by mouthing what you obviously know to be false. We now have a government filled with officials who are incapable of feeling shame.

The latest demonstration of this characteristic of Trump and his administration occurred yesterday with the shooting death of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While there is disagreement on some points, the basics of what occurred in this incident are fairly clear. The following account is based on video of the scene, eyewitness accounts, and media reports.

According to her ex-husband, who was interviewed by Politico, Good and her partner had just dropped Good's 6-year-old son off at school and were driving home when they encountered a group of ICE agents. It appears that Good, and other drivers as well, stopped their vehicles angled with the backs of their cars to the curb and blocking one lane of traffic. Some reports say that Good's partner was photographing the ICE personnel. One ICE officer, with a phone in his hand and apparently taking video of the scene, rounded the back of Good's car. An eye witness said that ICE officers were yelling for her to move.

While she was stopped, Good waved to other vehicles to go around her. Because an SUV was parked next to her, she would have to pull out to the other lane in order to move, and she was likely waiting for traffic to clear before proceeding. When an ICE vehicle approached, she waved for it to pass as well. Instead, the truck stopped, and two officers emerged and began walking towards her. The officers were very aggressive, and one began pulling on Good's door handle and reaching inside the car. The officer was yelling for Good to get out of the car. The eyewitness speculated that Good was spooked by this behavior, which may well have been the case. In addition, Good may have been confused by conflicting orders. At any rate, she backed up slightly, clearly attempting to get a better angle to get around the SUV parked next to her, and then pulled forward, turning her wheels to the right. While Good was engaged in this maneuver, the ICE officer who had been behind her car taking video continued around the right side of her car and then on to the front of the vehicle. He was moving to Good's left while she was turning to her right. Because the two aggressive officers attempting to force entry to her car were on her left, she may not have noticed the officer emerging from her right. Either way, by the time Good pulled forward, the officer who was still filming with his phone had reached a point in front of her car that was close to its right side.

This is the point of disagreement. The officer with his phone had nearly completely cleared the car and was moving to Good's left. Good was pulling forward slowly and turning to her right. If the officer felt that he was in danger, all he needed to do was continue moving in the direction in which he was already going. Instead, he pulled his weapon and fired three shots. A New York Times video analysis that includes slow-motion footage of events shows that the officer's feet were out of the way of Good's vehicle before he fired the first shot. Low-quality video from another angle makes it appear that the officer was hit, but if so, it was only his upper body which he was leaning forward that was brushed. He may not have been touched at all. The Times' analysis shows definitively that he was not in front of the car, which was turning away from him, when he opened fire. After the shooting, he was shown walking without difficulty and demonstrated no injuries of any sort.

A normal reaction by government officials would have been to express sorrow that a death had occurred, urge everyone to stay calm, warn that first reports are often wrong, and to promise a thorough investigation. But the Trump administration is far from normal. Instead of doing anything even close to what might have been expected, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem told a series of obvious lies. She accused Good of "blocking the officers in with her vehicle." As video from the scene clearly shows, Good was nowhere near an ICE vehicle and, far from blocking them, was waving to allow them to pass in front of her. Noem went on to say that Good had been "stalking and impeding their work all throughout the day." There is no evidence of this and the allegation directly contradicts what Good's ex-husband explained. Noem accused Good of "weaponizing her vehicle" and "attempting to run an law enforcement officer over." Again, this is directly contradicted by video of the incident. While it might be argued that Good came close to running into an officer, all evidence suggests that she was attempting to avoid such a thing. She was turning away from the officer, not towards him as would be expected if she was trying to hit him. Noem then described the incident as an "act of domestic terrorism." This is an outrageous allegation. Good was clearly trying to get away from the scene, not attempting to commit violence. By blatantly lying in such a manner, Noem is doing both her department and the public a disservice.

Noem's lies were soon followed by additional false information spread by Trump himself. Posting on Truth Social, Trump, with no evidence whatsoever, claimed that a witness who could be heard screaming in the video was "a paid professional agitator." Trump went on to say that Good had "viciously ran over the ICE Officer," something that is plainly not true. About the officer who had done the shooting, Trump wrote that "it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital." That is actually neither hard to believe nor true. The officer was shown on video walking around with no problem after the shooting, and Noem had already said that he had been released from the hospital.

Coincidentally, Trump had a planned interview with the New York Times yesterday afternoon. The Times reporters asked Trump about the shooting, and he again claimed that the ICE officer had been "run over." When the reporters told Trump that did not appear to be the case, Trump asked that they review the video with him. The Times reporters pointed out that the video did not show the officer being run over. Trump's response was "Well, I — the way I look at it …" and then turned to blaming former President Joe Biden's immigration policies.

This is one example of administration lies that I have described in detail. However, there are far more examples. Importantly, administration lies have been so pervasive that they have impacted how the administration is perceived in federal court. The federal government has traditionally been granted the "Presumption of Regularity," which is "the standard assumption that the government has followed normal procedures and is being truthful with the courts." In many cases, federal judges no longer grant the government this benefit. The New York Times had a report about this in August, headlined "Judges Openly Doubt Government as Justice Dept. Misleads and Dodges Orders". As the article says, "members of President Trump’s Justice Department have repeatedly misled the courts, violated their orders and demonized judges who have ruled against them..." Magistrate Judge Zia M. Faruqui was quoted in the article as saying, "Blind deference to the government? That is no longer a thing. Trust that has been earned over generations has been lost in weeks." Faruqui went on to say, "High deference is out; trust but verify is in." Faruqui was echoed by Judge Paula Xinis, who has been presiding over a case involving Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the immigrant wrongfully deported to El Salvador. After being repeatedly lied to by Department of Justice lawyers, Xinis said, "You have taken the presumption of regularity and you’ve destroyed it in my view." In one ruling, Xinis stated that "Respondents [DOJ lawyers] did not just stonewall. They affirmatively misled the tribunal."

In Chicago, Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official who has led ICE and Border Patrol crackdowns in many cities, was also caught lying to the Court. Bovino had testified that he had been hit in the head with a rock before deploying tear gas against protesters. Judge Sara Ellis later said that "Video evidence ultimately disproved this" and that "Defendant Bovino admitted that he lied". Ellis would go on to say that "I find the defendant’s evidence simply not credible." As we consider DHS statements in the Minneapolis shooting, it is important to remember how often officials from that department have been caught lying.

This is an administration whose word simply can't be trusted. Trump is routinely caught lying. Noem obviously lied to the public just yesterday. Bovino has lied. DOJ attorneys have lied to the courts so often that they are no longer presumed to be telling the truth. All of these lies come at a cost. A cost in the public's trust of the government, a cost to the legal system (government lawyers now must prove things that once were accepted as true), and a cost to the government's credibility. Courts have given up on taking the government at its word. The press routinely accepts government accounts of events unquestionably. It is far past time for that practice to end. There is no valid reason that any official statement from the Trump administration should be considered truthful until it is verified. This is an administration of liars and deserves to be treated as such.