U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives for a briefing for the House of Representatives on the situation in Venezuela, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 7, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
A lawyer revealed the nefarious plot undergirding President Donald Trump's latest civil rights investigation during a podcast interview on Tuesday.
Last week, the Department of Justice announced that it was opening a civil rights investigation into the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse in Minneapolis who was killed by a swarm of Trump's immigration forces during a protest. The investigation was opened about a week after Pretti was killed, which Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, noted on a new episode of the podcast "To the Contrary" with Charlie Sykes, is relatively late for such an investigation.
While the investigation may seem like the appropriate course of action, Litman warned the Trump administration may have an ulterior motive in mind for investigating Pretti's death.
"Having an investigation open is a very convenient tool for shutting the state down, pushing them around, saying, 'You can't come here; we are handling this,'" Litman said.
Shortly after Pretti's death, Trump's FBI has reportedly assumed control of the investigation and told local law enforcement they would not work with them.
Litman also questioned why Trump's DOJ decided to investigate Pretti's death, when the death of Renee Good remains uninvestigated. The 37-year-old mother in Minneapolis was gunned down by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jonathan Ross as she was driving away from an ICE raid.
Good's death occurred about three weeks before Pretti's. Both shootings sparked protests in several cities across the country and renewed calls for several Trump administration officials to be fired or resign.