Sen. Markwayne Mullin said he regretted calling Alex Pretti “deranged” but stopped short of offering a direct apology to Pretti’s family.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” the Oklahoma Republican said during his confirmation hearing Wednesday to serve as the next Homeland Security secretary. He was referring to his past comments regarding the U.S. citizen killed by federal immigration enforcement agents in Minnesota back in January, who some conservatives in the immediate aftermath labeled a “domestic terrorist.”
It was a stronger concession than Mullin gave just moments earlier, when he refused to apologize for calling Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, a “snake.” Still, when pressed by the committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, Mullin would not commit to apologizing to Pretti’s family until the conclusion of an investigation into the incident.
“If I’m proven wrong, then I will,” Mullin said.
Regarding Renee Good, another U.S. citizen killed by immigration enforcement officers in Minnesota earlier this year, Mullin refused to retract comments he made at the time of Good’s death, specifically that agents were justified in killing her. He told CNN in January that agents “had the right to defend themselves.”
He said he would wait for the findings of the investigation into Good’s killing to comment further; Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) countered that the Trump administration is currently blocking state and local inquiries.
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