Sioux Falls attorney Zimbeck: The Trump mantra is now kill, deny and slander. Are we going to accept that?

Kill. Deny. Slander.

In an essay that was published on this site this past September, I raised concerns that the lack of truthfulness in so many of the statements coming from President Trump, numerous members of his administration, and Republican lawmakers were laying the foundation for an authoritarian regime that resembles fascism.

Since that time, there has been nothing short of a full, frontal assault on the truth by the administration, its Republican enablers, and right-wing media personalities. Lawless behavior, breaking of norms, and outright lies (or “flooding the zone with shit”) is standard operating procedure in Trump 2.0.

From the deadly missile strikes on suspected drug boats in the Caribbean in violation of U.S. and international law; to Trump’s continued insistence that foreign countries pay tariffs (despite on the record arguments in the Supreme Court that recognize tariffs as a tax on American consumers); to the latest killings in Minneapolis of two young people who were merely exercising their right to assemble and be an annoyance to federal agents carrying out an extremely unpopular policy against a vulnerable population in that community, there is little relief.

The latest enforcement campaigns by ICE and Border Patrol in Minnesota, and now Maine, are targeted operations as retribution against Trump’s so-called enemies, like the Democratic governors of those two states. While the administration uses rhetoric that claims Somali immigrants are “the worst of the worst,” the reality for the vast majority of these people is they are trying to escape a violent and lawless part of the world in order to make a better life for themselves (which sounds a lot like the kind of traditional reasons given for generations of immigrants to this country). 

If the administration really wanted to carry out the deportation quotas mandated by Stephen Miller, Trump’s point person on immigration, ICE and Border Patrol would turn their focus on states like Florida, and Texas, and California, where each state, individually is reported to be the home of upwards of 1.5 to 2 million undocumented immigrants.

It’s really hard to see Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem or Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino cosplaying for the cameras in any of the neighborhoods of Dallas or Lubbock in a way that would make Texas’ hardline governor, Greg Abbott, look bad.

Noem and Vice President JD Vance among others, claim the reason for stepped up enforcement in Minnesota is in response to claims of fraud in several child welfare programs dating back to the COVID era (a non-profit called Feeding our Future was at the center of this fraud.)

While a number of convictions have been obtained dating back several years now, it appears that there needs to be more investigation in order to determine where state government controls broke down. So why does a financial fraud case get so much attention with an immigration twist? Because a number of the perpetrators come from the large Somali immigrant community in the Twin Cities.

Ask yourself this one fundamental question: What is the best way to investigate a financial fraud case? The answer of course is to bring in trained experts like auditors and forensic accountants, who until recently have been a significant area of financial fraud investigation conducted by the FBI. As you watch daily videos of the reported 3,000 ICE and Border Patrol enforcement actions in Minnesota, do any of these agents look like they are auditors or accountants?

Does Greg Bovino dress like a typical accountant?

With a huge infusion of funding from the One Big Beautiful Bill of 2025, combined with the demands from Stephen Miller to meet daily quotas in the number of arrests and deportations, ICE went on a massive hiring spree in the latter half of 2025. To meet the demand for new agents, applicants receive attractive pay packages and sign-on bonuses reportedly of $50,000. ICE and Border Patrol onboarded a large number of agents who for any number of reasons were unfit to carry out their mission.

Adding to these problems, an apparent lack of comprehensive law enforcement training adds much more risk to already volatile interactions with members of the public who object to their methods and the administration’s unpopular policy objective. Now, in any number of recorded and documented interactions with both people who are being targeted as well as protesters, we witness numerous examples of extremely aggressive behavior coming from wannabe Navy SEALS and Delta Force engaged in enforcement operations of civilians when these same officers might have serious challenges securing jobs as security officers at a local mall.

Many folks across the political spectrum have long had concerns over the militarization of domestic police forces. It seems that when a police department is outfitted with military grade assault vehicles and arms, they tend to use the equipment, whether the situations really call for its use. The mere presence of unmarked vehicles containing well-armed masked men in military tactical gear do not make most Americans feel comfortable. There can be only two responses here: people will either comply and acquiesce to this militarized situation and stay out of the way of these forces; or they will resist and protest the radical change that is evolving into a fascist, authoritarian state.

In the killing of Renee Good several weeks ago, several videos show that while she may have been obstructing agents that day, she was not making it impossible for them to carry out their activities. It wasn’t until two agents rolled up in a pickup truck that the situation escalated. The agent who was driving the truck rushes toward Good’s vehicle and aggressively grabs her car door, demanding her to get out of the car. 

The New York Times has a video of the entire incident and breaks down frame-by-frame what actually took place. Anyone watching this video can see that Good, while being playfully annoying to the agent who would ultimately kill her, instantly feared that she was going to get dragged out of her car and assaulted by the aggressive agent and his partner. That fear was very reasonable as we have seen footage of people being gassed and pepper-sprayed in their vehicles and drug to the ground.

It was also clear that she was trying to get away from the agents as she steered her car away from the agent standing near the left front of her car. And still she was shot and killed.

Rather than letting an investigation play out to determine whether her killing was justified or an instance of reckless or intentional homicide, Noem and others in the administration immediately took to the airwaves and declared that Good was a domestic terrorist, that she weaponized her vehicle with the intention of running over the agent who shot and killed her with three shots (one though the windshield and two at point-blank range from beside her car through the open window). Noem’s initial version of the events barely resembles what actually took place, but of course she “spiced things up” by claiming this to be an act of domestic terrorism with a weaponized vehicle.

She also made the outlandish claim that the agent who killed Good was actually struck by the car and was taken to the hospital despite the video showing he may have been touched by the car but was unhurt. Her claim of the shooter’s injuries is not supported by the video showing the killer walking to Good’s car, which ended up just yards away from where he shot her, calling her a “f—ing bitch,” and then walking back to his fellow agents.

Making a bad situation even worse, the administration made the determination without independent investigation that the matter has been resolved, and the agent essentially exonerated, based on comments from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.

It has refused to cooperate with state and local officials whose job is to investigate this killing. To this day, state and local officials have been forced to go to federal court to get a judge to order these federal agencies to preserve evidence so that an independent investigation can be conducted by the agencies directly responsible for investigating deaths in Minnesota. Federal officials also doubled down on their slanderous approach by saying that they were going to launch an investigation into Good and her spouse, implying some sort of connection to a rogue band of middle-age soccer mom terrorists.

We are fed a steady stream of lies. We are being told not to believe what we see with our own eyes. The investigation is rushed and it’s determined the shooting is justified with no official explanation. This is yet another example of how truth is sacrificed in order to perpetuate a set of unpopular policies and tactics that only further the narrative of an autocratic power. 

Then we come to the unfortunate events of Jan. 24. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old Minneapolis man, is gunned down on a frozen street by armed agents searching for an illegal immigrant with a criminal record which reportedly turns out to be a traffic ticket. Not exactly “the worst of the worst.”

Minnesota, like South Dakota, has permissive concealed carry laws, and Alexander Pretti decided to lawfully carry his handgun while monitoring and protesting ICE and Border Patrol operating in a Minneapolis neighborhood.  Unfortunately, possession of this gun led to his killing by federal officers who fired not one, but 10 separate shots into Pretti’s body.  He was killed even though he carried the weapon in a concealed manner, and without the actual physical ability to access the gun due to being restrained by a handful of officers.

Once again, The New York Times recently put out another analysis of video footage from several cameras, narrating the events in a frame-by-frame fashion. It is graphic but also matter of fact in its presentation. It is hard for any objective person to conclude that this was anything but a wrongful shooting of an unarmed man and that multiple agents failed to control the situation.

Yet, 10 shots were fired, and Alex Pretti lay dead on a frozen street, and all of this has been viewed by millions via the internet and the media.

Having not learned any lessons from the lies regarding her killing and the slanderous characterization of Renee Good just days before, KNoem, Bovino and even Vance and others in the administration once again made matters worse almost immediately by slanderously labeling Pretti, a revered ICU nurse at the Minneapolis VA Hospital, as a “domestic terrorist.”

His crime was simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time, armed with a cell phone camera and carrying a concealed weapon that was only made visible to agents and taken from him while he was being subdued mere seconds before he was shot ten times. 

Kill. Deny. Slander.

While you can say, as some have, that Pretti used bad judgment when he decided to carry a weapon to a street protest where ICE and Border Patrol were conducting an immigration round-up operation, this is not criminal behavior, and agents were in no way being threatened by anything other than what his cell phone would record of their interaction.

Cynically, you might also say that Pretti used bad judgment when he came to the aid of a woman who was thrown to the ground by an aggressive agent, only for both of Pretti and the woman to be pepper-sprayed directly in their faces. How can it be right that someone must risk serious injury and even death when coming to the aid of another?

By participating in the protest, Pretti is exercising his First Amendment rights, and equally important, by carrying that gun, Pretti is also exercising his Second Amendment right. That particular right is sacrosanct to the MAGA movement and others, yet many on the gun rights side have been fairly muted in their remarks.

Given the number of weapons in the hands of private citizens, it’s not a stretch to assume that Pretti was not the only protester carrying a weapon on the streets of Minneapolis that day.

My one hope is that after his tragic death, far fewer people are carrying handguns while protesting.

Again, this is about truth and its absence coming from the Trump Administration. When the message coming from this administration is shocking in its lack of credibility, it falls upon everyday Americans to call out the spokespeople for the administration as well as their Republican enablers.

Perhaps even resort to beg and plead with the likes of John Thune, Mike Rounds, and Dusty Johnson to set their “Trump-endorsed” status aside for once, for the good of the American people. To sit back and not speak out when so much damage is being done to our country we have succumb to the “Kitty Genovese Syndrome.”

It’s time to not be a bystander to the widespread destruction and make our voices heard.

We’ve come a very long way from the rather quaint “alternative facts” of the early days of Trump. Perhaps we’ve reached the point where the more appropriate mantra is: Kill. Deny. Slander. Ignore.

Dave Zimbeck is an attorney living in Sioux Falls.

Photo: public domain, wikimedia commons

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