Trump agent’s ‘dead to me’ rant exposes ‘compelling’ motive in shooting: ex-prosecutor

A former federal prosecutor said newly surfaced emails from a Trump immigration agent point to a motive in a deadly shooting.

Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney, said Wednesday on her Substack show "Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance" that emails in which ICE officer David Brouillette told his sister she was "dead to me" amount to "strong, compelling evidence of motive" in the July killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford, Maine.

Vance was joined by New York Times reporter Katie Benner, who reported with a colleague Wednesday that Brouillette's sister shared 2021 emails in which he lashed out at her Colombian partner, a man living in the U.S. legally. Benner's reporting also found Brouillette was brought on during the Trump administration's rush to staff up deportation ranks, and that his background report was not fully reviewed before he was put in the field. ICE has denied lowering its hiring standards and declined to confirm Brouillette fired the shots.

Benner read one of the emails on air, which Brouillette sent after his sister asked relatives to record birthday messages for her toddler.

"Tell your partner he can take his non-citizen a— back to his country and enjoy his third world luxuries," Brouillette wrote. "You're dead to me, Liz. Enjoy it. Dead to me."

Vance, who said she handled civil rights prosecutions during 25 years at the Justice Department, explained that cases like this hinge on intent.

"What you have to be able to do is to prove motive," Vance said. "These emails and the testimony of family members established that this was not someone who had the capacity to look at the man he ended up killing and view him as a human being."

"The fact that there's such strong, compelling evidence of motive, I think, makes this ripe," she added. "It should be a federal prosecution."

Benner said a lawyer for the victim's family was told that Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey, whose term ends Dec. 6, plans to release public findings before he leaves. Vance noted Maine has its own civil rights law mirroring the federal statute.

"We sometimes forget that prosecutors are human beings just like everyone else, and they don't like to leave unfinished business behind when they go," Vance said.

Benner also flagged Dec. 1, when Brouillette's probationary year ends and firing him gets much harder. "So I'm really curious to see whether or not he makes it through his one year," she said.