Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) claimed he was escorted by National Guard and FBI agents to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference last week — before he was forcibly removed.
The remarks come less than a week after the incident, which saw the senator pushed to the ground by federal agents. Padilla claimed he was there to have a meeting and “to try to get answers from the Department of Defense that state and local officials were not receiving.”
“I went to the federal building in West Los Angeles,” he recalled, “I was met at the entrance by a National Guardsman and an FBI agent who escorted me through security screening and up to a conference room for my scheduled briefing.”
“While waiting for my scheduled briefing,” Padilla said, “I learned that Homeland Security Secretary Noem was holding a press conference literally just down the hall, and that press conference was causing my briefing to be delayed.”
The senator went on to explain he wanted to listen to Noem’s press conference “in the hopes of hearing Secretary Noem provide some new information that could help us make sense of what was happening.”
“I didn’t just get up and go,” Padilla said, “I asked and was escorted by the national guardsmen and the FBI agent into the press conference.”
“They opened the door for me,” the California Senator said. “They accompanied me into the press briefing room, and they stood next to me as I stood there for a while, listening.”
After the incident, Noem claimed she and security officers had no idea who Padilla was as, she claimed, he pushed towards her in the briefing.
Padilla claims Noem said the purpose of federal law enforcement and military was to “liberate Los Angeles from our governor and our mayor.”
He then asked his fellow senators to contemplate that statement, “To somehow liberate us from the very people that we democratically elected to lead our city and our state.”
“Colleagues,” Padilla said, “let that fundamentally un-American mission statement sink in. That is not a mission focused on public safety, and that simply is not and cannot be the mission of federal law enforcement and the United States military.”
The senator went on to say he was “compelled both as a Senator and as an American to speak up.”
Padilla claimed that before he could get out his question, he was “physically and aggressively forced out of the room,” he added, “even as I repeatedly announced I was a United States Senator.”
He claims the agents who escorted him into the room stood by silently as he was “pushed, pulled, and struggled to maintain his balance.”
Padilla became visibly upset when he said, “I was forced to the ground, first on my knees and then flat on my chest.”
“As I was handcuffed and marched down a hallway repeatedly asking, 'Why am I being detained?' Not once did they tell me why.”
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