Come on, man. If this happened in a Hollywood movie, we’d roll our eyes at an amateurish attempt at irony.
Well, as William Shatner said in Airplane II … irony can be pretty ironic sometimes. And this time we get double the irony!
Law enforcement authorities on Sunday arrested a second individual in South Florida connected to the theft of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse, according to two sources familiar with the situation.
“This second offender is implicated in a pattern of thefts and robberies with the primary defendant who is accused of the robbery of the Secretary. He was taken into custody earlier today with critical assistance from the Miami Beach, Florida police department and immigration and customs enforcement,” a Secret Service spokesperson said.
The second suspect, according to U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin, is also in the country illegally. The person was charged with driver’s license/possession of stolen or fictitious identification, Miami Beach police said, which is a state violation.
Why did Florida make that a state violation? Likely because Florida had no confidence in the enforcement from previous administrations on illegal immigration and the document fraud that often accompanies it. That’s much less of a problem with this administration — and given the circumstances of this crime, far less of a problem. They picked the wrong woman to rob this time.
Although Noem certainly turned out to be a good target otherwise. Does the Homeland Security Secretary routinely carry three thousand in cash around with her? If so, Noem may want to rethink the term ‘security’:
Anyway. How on-the-nose can you get? Two illegal aliens rob the woman whose mission has her speaking out about border security and crime from illegal immigration. If one or both of these guys are MS-13 or Tren de Aragua, I’m calling shenanigans, or else looking for The Architect in this version of The Matrix.
Actually, one has to wonder whether Noem and Donald Trump will cut these two a deal. They will get a lot of mileage out of Mario E. Bustamante Leiva and his as-yet unnamed accomplice. It might just be good sportsmanship to show a little mercy by kicking the pair out of the country rather than pursue several years in federal prison for the pair. On the other hand, it could be better PR to make them a very public example to other would-be criminals, illegal immigrants or not, about how this administration plans to deal with criminals. Especially those foolish or brave enough to target administration officials.
Ed Martin, the US Attorney in DC, doesn’t believe the pair knew who their targeted victim was, however. Noem just had a “nice looking bag,” he told reporters. Otherwise, though, the pair clearly knew what they were doing, and this isn’t their first goat rodeo in the US:
Matt McCool, an United States Secret Service official overseeing the agency’s Washington field office, alleged Bustamante Leiva is a “serial offender.”
“The investigation revealed alleged criminal activity, including potential device and credit card fraud,” McCool said in a statement. “Given this, the Secret Service will maintain jurisdiction over the case and intends to present its findings to a federal court in coordination with the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.”
Seriously — who wrote this script? The woman in charge of a controversial effort to accelerate deportations of illegal aliens gets robbed by two of them, and they turn out to be Known Wolves whom law enforcement failed to deal with in the past? What version of The Matrix is this, anyway? And … can I get one of those pointy pens, too?
Addendum: Why would the Secret Service have jurisdiction over the robbery? Were they providing security for Noem at the time? If so, then shouldn’t they be explaining how they allowed Noem to get robbed and the perps to get away?
