Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ idea of an “independent review” of the attempt on the former president’s life included a Never Trump member of President Joe Biden’s administration.
While Congress set to grilling the U.S. Secret Service director over the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, the impeached DHS secretary launched a 45-day review with a four-member team comprised of “bipartisan independent law enforcement experts.” Included among them was the department’s secretary under President Barack Obama and a current member of the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board, Janet Napolitano.
“We are committed to getting to the bottom of what happened on July 13, and I am grateful to the distinguished members of this independent review who will bring decades of expertise in law enforcement and security operations to this important investigation,” asserted Mayorkas in a statement Sunday announcing the panel.
Earlier this year, Napolitano had appeared on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” to downplay what Trump had dubbed “Biden Migrant Crime.”
“So, first of all, for former President Trump to run as a so-called law and order candidate, it would be like me saying I play in the NBA. I mean, it just … just doesn’t hold true,” she told the host while touting incomplete crime statistics resulting from a lack of “agency participation.”
Former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano: “For former President Trump to run as a so-called law and order candidate, it would be like me saying I play in the NBA.” pic.twitter.com/l8MsKmpjvr
— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) April 7, 2024
“Look,” Napolitano added with a straight face, “never let the facts get in the way of rhetoric, I guess. But the facts are the facts.”
Facts left unmentioned by the former secretary included how she had filed a suit in 2017 against the Trump administration as the president of the University of California over the end of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program which she had helped roll out.
Mayorkas’ statement on the panel added, “Ensuring the safety and security of current and former Presidents is critical and one of our Department’s top priorities. The men and women of the Secret Service make it the greatest protective service in the world, with one of the most solemn and difficult missions in government. This independent review will examine what happened and provide actionable recommendations to ensure they carry out their no-fail mission most effectively and to prevent something like this from ever happening again.”
Along with Napolitano, he pegged former superintendent of Maryland State Police, and former Delaware Department of Safety and Homeland Security Secretary David Mitchell; Deputy Attorney General to President George W. Bush, Mark Filip; and then-Homeland Security Advisor to Bush, Frances Townsend.
Meanwhile, the former secretary acknowledged but downplayed the impact that illegal aliens had on crime in the United States when asked by Psaki about the murder of Laken Riley.
“So look, making an overall argument about crime from one terrible case — and it was — it’s a terrible case, and my heart goes out to the family and to the friends of the victim — but to make an overall national argument that we are watching violent crime caused by migrants, again, just doesn’t comply with the facts.”
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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