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Bulwark fam, it’s been an incredibly challenging two weeks on this beat. I know from your heartfelt comments that you’ve felt it, too. I’m headed to Spain next week for my cousin’s wedding. (Congrats Samantha and Will!)
Before I go, though, I have another newsletter for you regarding the killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE. I look at the insinuations the Trump administration has made about him—and at some disturbing unanswered questions about his death. I’ve also got a bit of positive news about the three witnesses who were in Lorenzo’s van, including his brother, Victor.
Today’s full newsletter is for Bulwark+ members. I hope you’ll consider becoming one yourself. You’ll have access to our locked content, you can hop into the comments sections, and you’ll be supporting journalism like this. We’d love to have you join our community.
–Adrian
P.S. – If you haven’t had a chance yet, please check out my colleague Tim Miller’s plea that we not grow numb to the Trump administration’s attempt to normalize state violence—and share it with your friends.
Shoot First, Smear Later
Killing Lorenzo Salgado Araujo wasn’t enough—now comes the Trump administration’s campaign to assassinate his character.
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THERE IS A FAMILIAR PATTERN to how the Trump administration responds when its immigration enforcement agents commit a high-profile killing: They move swiftly to malign the victim.
Usually, this involves dredging up menacing pictures. Often it means pointing to past, unrelated crimes. In the case of Alex Pretti, it meant surfacing video of a separate confrontation he had with ICE officers before he was fatally shot.
Now, following the killing last week of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo by ICE, we find ourselves in this cycle once again.
Reports emerged on Wednesday that the FBI, which is leading an investigation of the confrontation in which Araujo was shot to death in Houston, claimed to have found potential “controlled substances” in Araujo’s van. According to a search-warrant application approved by a judge on Tuesday and obtained by the New York Times, an FBI special agent inspecting the van sometime after the fatal incident saw eight “plastic bags with what appeared to be a white crystal-like substance”—packaging supposedly “consistent with methamphetamine.” The news was quickly amplified by right-wing media, which posted photos from the warrant application showing the small bags of powder.
Alarm bells went off immediately. It’s unusual for an application like this to be unsealed so swiftly, as the Times notes. And knowing the Trump administration’s history of vilifying its victims, it was hard to escape the suspicion this was orchestrated to insinuate Araujo was not an innocent working-class immigrant father but rather a . . . drug addict? A drug pusher? A bad guy somehow deserving of the bullets?
It strained credulity. And, sure enough, ...
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