It has become the trademark of many in the liberal media to publicize any Democrat plot against the Trump administration, and it doesn't matter whether it passes legal muster. Tuesday on CNN's The Situation Room, what started out as a story that didn't look good for DHS and ICE, was wrecked when they turned to CNN legal analyst Elle Honig for how this would turn out for Democrats.
The story involves the wrongful arrest of a U.S. citizen in Minnesota back in January, and the intentions of state authorities to pursue criminal charges against the agents responsible for the mistake. Wolf Blitzer kicked off the segment by talking over a short clip of the arrest being made, and introducing CNN Law Enforcement Correspondent Whitney Wild.
WILD: The County Attorney in Ramsey County, John Choi, says that they are investigating this as criminal actions by these federal immigration agents who went into the home of a man named Scott Thao, and they say it was without a warrant, without any legal justification. And they're describing it as these agents breaking into the home, arresting Tao, taking him away from his home.... Again, it bears repeating that Thao is a U.S. Citizen.
She then played a clip of Choi who claimed that the case involves felonious allegation of kidnaping, illegal detainment, and false imprisonment.
Wild did not explain that the Ramsey County Attorney is an elected Democrat. The elitist media routinely hides the party label when Democrats are going after Trump or his appointees. Take NBC's version of the John Choi stunt: "Minnesota investigates the arrest by ICE of a Hmong American man as a possible kidnapping."
Wild at least gave a brief presentation of the DHS side of the story.
WILD: The Department of Homeland Security had previously said in this incident, immigration agents were executing a search for two sex offenders. One of those sex offenders, it should be noted, was already in custody at the time of that attempted search. DHS is now saying this, "This is nothing but a political stunt to demonize ICE law enforcement, who are facing a 1300% increase in assaults against them as they arrest for the worst of the worst."
CNN will offer generous and positive coverage to "demonizing" ICE. Co-host Pamela Brown asked CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig about this stunt: "So what are the chances that this becomes a successful prosecution?" Honig proceeded to pour cold water on the whole story.
HONIG: I think the chances of a successful prosecution are near zero here. There's two big problems. First of all, this was a mistake. All parties seem to agree. The ICE agents intended to arrest one person. They arrested the wrong person. Now that's bad. And there should be consequences. But it's not a crime. There's no such thing as accidental kidnaping. The law in Minnesota and elsewhere require specific intentionality to support a criminal charge of kidnaping.
And Honig's bucket still had plenty of water left in it.
HONIG: The second problem is there's essentially no precedent for state level prosecutors to indict federal law enforcement agents for something they did in the course of their federal job.... So I don't give this case much of a chance of ultimately succeeding.
That's probably not what Brown had wanted to hear. Blitzer then attempted to salvage anything that might make ICE look bad, by asking about the possibility of a successful civil suit against the feds:
HONIG: Yes Wolf, they could sue civilly for damages. It's really hard to sue the individual ICE officers. They have broad civil immunity, but what they can do is file a claim against the federal government under something called the Federal Tort Claims Act.... So, if he can show that ICE was negligent here and caused damages, then yes, he might succeed on a civil lawsuit.
Give CNN credit for bringing on Honig even though they were likely aware of his point of view. It's pretty obvious that this whole story turned into something that might very well have met the requirements to be a Seinfeld episode, a show about nothing.
