{"id":66179,"date":"2026-02-12T13:56:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:56:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/gop-senator-minnesota-ag-clash-at-capitol-hill-hearing-sit-there-and-smirk-its-sick\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T13:56:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T18:56:25","slug":"gop-senator-minnesota-ag-clash-at-capitol-hill-hearing-sit-there-and-smirk-its-sick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/12\/gop-senator-minnesota-ag-clash-at-capitol-hill-hearing-sit-there-and-smirk-its-sick\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP senator, Minnesota AG clash at Capitol Hill hearing: ‘Sit there and smirk, it’s sick’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Republican senator accused Minnesota\u2019s attorney general of flashing a “despicable” smirk Thursday following a tense exchange at a hearing on Capitol Hill<\/a>, \u2014 a reaction the Democrat in turn described as a “nice theatrical performance.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tensions escalated at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs oversight hearing after Sen. Ron Johnson<\/a>, R-Wis., alleged Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was encouraging unrest in Minnesota, which has been rocked by recent anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests and the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti<\/a> and Renee Nicole Good.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Were you ever concerned about encouraging \u2014 I guess, people that support you \u2014 to go out and put themselves into harm’s way\u00a0by impeding and\u00a0obstructing a legal law enforcement action. Did that ever concern you?” Johnson asked Ellison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Sir, that never happened. We\u00a0[at]\u00a0all times said if you want to protest, protest peacefully, protest\u00a0safely.\u00a0But\u00a0you’ll\u00a0never find\u00a0me being\u00a0against the First Amendment.\u00a0I’ll\u00a0always be for the First Amendment,” Ellison responded.<\/p>\n

DEM REP LABELS FEDERAL IMMIGRATION AGENTS ‘THUGS’ IN TENSE HEARING<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Johnson then said, “I\u00a0can’t\u00a0imagine encouraging somebody that supported me politically to go and put themselves into harm’s way.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Their vehicles have been rammed by some of these peaceful protesters<\/a>,\u00a0probably the\u00a0trained activists.\u00a0They’ve\u00a0had rocks thrown at their vehicles. I\u00a0can’t\u00a0imagine encouraging people \u2018put yourself in harm’s way, get out there and record that,\u2019” Johnson said about anti-ICE sentiment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I, as a government\u00a0official\u00a0would have said, back off, let us work with ICE. Let’s cooperate with them.\u00a0Let’s\u00a0see if we\u00a0can\u00a0de-escalate this. But, attorney general, you did the exact opposite. And two people are dead because you encouraged them to put themselves into harm’s way, and now\u00a0you’re\u00a0exploiting those two martyrs. That was a tragedy. It never should have happened,” he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

HOMAN ANNOUNCES OPERATION METRO SURGE TO CONCLUDE IN MINNESOTA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“So now\u00a0you’re\u00a0an ICE officer,\u00a0you’re\u00a0doing enforcement action.\u00a0You’ve\u00a0got a team behind you trying to protect you.\u00a0You’ve\u00a0got all these trained activists behind you, is there any wonder… a tragedy was going to happen, and you encouraged it. And you ought to feel damn guilty about it,” Johnson concluded.<\/p>\n

He then told Ellison, “Yeah. Sit there and smirk. Smirk.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0sick. It is despicable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Are you asking me for comment, Senator?” Ellison said. “Because everything you said was untrue. It was a nice theatrical performance, but it was all\u00a0lies.”\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Republican senator accused Minnesota\u2019s attorney general of flashing a “despicable” smirk Thursday following a tense exchange at a hearing on Capitol Hill, \u2014 a reaction the Democrat in turn described as a “nice theatrical performance.”\u00a0 Tensions escalated at the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs oversight hearing after Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., alleged Minnesota … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66179"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66179\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}