Mitch McConnell Was Loaded Onto Stretcher, Says Eyewitness With Video

A newly released video appears to show Senator Mitch McConnell being loaded into an ambulance on a stretcher as he was transported to the hospital last month.

CNN spoke to a neighbor of the Kentucky senator and former Senate majority leader, who said that they saw two ambulances, a fire truck, and Capitol Police officers blocking their street at 8:30 a.m. on June 14. That neighbor took a video of emergency responders pushing a person, whose face is not visible, on a stretcher to an ambulance.

When the neighbor asked what was going on, police officers said that there was a medical emergency. The neighbor then asked if the person having the emergency was McConnell, to which the officers replied they would close the street for any person, according to CNN. The neighbor said that another witness told them that McConnell was the person on the stretcher and wasn’t wearing an oxygen mask.

“He’s in a stretcher, and he’s in some sort like orange foam looking blanket type thing,” the neighbor told the news outlet, adding that they could see McConnell’s uncovered feet, which did not appear to be moving. The first responders did not seem to be moving urgently, the neighbor noted.

“In a situation where perhaps time is of the essence, there seems to be a little bit more urgency, but there was no urgency here,” the neighbor said to CNN.

Very little information is known about McConnell’s condition, as his office hasn’t divulged much information in the nearly one month he’s been at George Washington University Hospital, only to say that he’s been receiving “excellent care.” Some on the right speculate that McConnell is brain-dead or worse, as no pictures or audio of the senator have been made public.

McConnell’s congressional colleagues claim to have spoken to him on the phone, but the public has not seen anything about McConnell’s physical or mental state. Kentucky’s Democratic Governor Andy Beshear is demanding answers from McConnell’s office on what’s going on.

Donald Trump has completely neutered the Election Assistance Commission.

The last three remaining members of the four-member bipartisan commission were forced out of the independent agency Thursday. The two Democratic appointees—Thomas Hicks and Benjamin W. Hovland—were fired via an email notice from the White House Presidential Personnel ​Office, according to inside sources that spoke with Reuters. The agency’s Republican commissioner—Christy McCormick—recieved a call and was asked to resign, reported NBC News.

“On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position as Commissioner of the Election Assistance ​Commission is terminated, effective immediately. Thank you for your service,” read the termination email delivered to the two Democratic appointees.

The Election Assistance Commission, or EAC, was created by the Help America Vote Act of 2002 to help states administer elections. It has also provided consultation on voting procedures. Its fourth commissioner left the agency in April.

The mass overhaul comes in the immediate wake of a Supreme Court decision—Trump v. Slaughter—that granted the president more power over independent agencies late last month. The 6–3 decision overturned Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, a 91-year-old precedent that had historically shielded staffers at such agencies from political interference by protecting them from being fired by the president at will.

The White House confirmed the terminations later on Thursday, suggesting that the EAC commissioners had not passed the Trump administration’s loyalty test.

“The President, and head of the Executive Branch, reserves the right to remove individuals that may not be totally aligned with the important task of securing America’s elections and ensuring ​every legal vote is counted,” a White House official said in a statement that cited the Supreme Court’s decision.

The White House told NBC News that all of the EAC’s members “will be replaced,” though doing so will require presidential appointments and subsequent Senate confirmations. Considering Capitol Hill’s current appointment turnaround times (as influenced by Trump’s SAVE America Act demands), that process could take an extraordinarily long amount of time at a point when America only has a few short months until a contentious midterm season.

The federal immigration agents who shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican father of three in Texas, weren’t even looking for him.

When ICE agents conducted a deadly traffic stop in Houston on Tuesday, they were looking for two people from Guatemala, two people familiar with the matter told The New York Times. Agents believed one of the people they were looking for drove a white van—instead, they found Salgado Araujo and three men he was driving to work.

Before conducting the traffic stop, federal agents knew they had the wrong man. They reportedly looked up the owner of the van and learned it was Salgado Araujo, who was undocumented. The supposedly “targeted operation” ended in ICE’s tenth fatal shooting this year.

In the hours after the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security claimed the officer had fired in self-defense after Salgado Araujo refused to comply with orders and “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.”

But the other three men in the car who were arrested by ICE told their lawyer that was a lie—there were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. Surveillance footage from the traffic stop also doesn’t support DHS’s claim. One video showed that agents boxed in Salgado Araujo’s car, before he attempted to U-turn and drive the other way. Another video showed that there was no damage to the ICE agents’ vehicle.

In another potentially dark turn in the saga, the three men who were with Salgado Araujo are under pressure from immigration officials to agree to self-deport, Juan Proaño, a representative for the families and CEO of the League of United Latin American Citizens, said in an interview with The New Republic.

ICE agents shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo during a traffic stop in Texas on Tuesday morning. The agents stated that Salgado Araujo ignored verbal instructions and tried to ram their vehicle. Newly obtained footage puts a massive asterisk over those claims of self-defense.

Surveillance video footage obtained by local outlet KHOU 11 shows the agents using their unmarked black SUV in an attempt to box in Salgado Araujo—initiating the conflict. Salgado Araujo makes a U-turn and heads in the other direction, and the agents then turn around to follow him.

While the video did not capture the final moments of the shooting, separate footage showed no damage to the ICE vehicle, again weakening federal agents’ claim that Salgado Araujo tried to ram them.

This discrepancy between the agents’ statements and the video footage has led to widespread calls for an independent investigation into Salgado Araujo’s death. Complicating that is the fact that the Department of Homeland Security detained the three other immigrant men in the car with Salgado Araujo—one of whom is Salgado Araujo’s brother—and is pressuring them to self-deport, preventing them from serving as witnesses.

“What we have heard … is that they’re being told to sign voluntary departures. They’re being told to cooperate with the version [of events] that ICE has released,” Immigrant Families and Students in the Fight head Cesar Espinosa told Democracy Now! on Thursday. “Threatening them that they’re going to file charges if they don’t, or that they’re going to be deported expeditiously. And what we fear is that this is another effort from ICE to cover up something that they did very, very wrong.”

ICE also arrested and detained witnesses after the killing of Alex Pretti in January. And this isn’t the first time it’s offered this version of events, either. When Marimar Martinez was shot five times in her car last year, ICE initially claimed that when the officers exited their vehicle, Martinez tried to run them over, “forcing the officers to fire defensively.” Bodycam footage showed no such thing, and her charges were dismissed.

“They are being approached by unmarked vehicles. These vehicles, many times, often, start ramming vehicles, trying to get them to stop. And when people jump out, they’re not wearing insignia saying ‘federal agents’ or ‘ICE’ or a badge. They’re wearing, a lot of the times, plain clothing with vests that just say ‘police,’” Espinosa continued. “So, I cannot imagine the fear that a lot of people feel when they are being persecuted by somebody that’s unknown. And I ask people, you know, put yourself in these folks’ shoes and ask yourself: How would you react?”

Salgado Araujo, a father of three U.S. citizens, had been in the United States for almost 35 years.

Mexico is taking legal action over ICE agents killing an immigrant in North Houston on Tuesday.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced Thursday that her government planned to file criminal complaints in the United States over all Mexican citizens who have been killed while being targeted by ICE. Fourteen Mexican nationals have died in ICE custody, while three have been killed in immigration enforcement operations, including Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, on Tuesday.

“We cannot turn a blind eye to ​the Mexicans who have died,” Sheinbaum said during a press conference. She said the purpose of the complaints was to bring accountability to anyone accused of a homicide or of committing human rights violations.

The Mexican government provides help to all of its citizens who ask for it, but “especially to Mexicans whose only crime is working honestly ​in the United States,” Sheinbaum added.

The Department of Homeland Security claims Salgado Araujo, an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, was killed after he didn’t comply with orders from ICE agents, and then “weaponized his vehicle in an attempt to run over an ICE law enforcement officer.” It’s a similar excuse to the ones DHS used for the shooting of Marimar Martinez in Chicago last year and the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis in January.

In both of those cases, video footage showed that neither Martinez nor Good tried to use their cars against ICE agents. The DHS has not provided any evidence to back up its claim in Salgado Araujo’s case, and has even pressured witnesses to “self-deport,” The New Republic found.

Salgado Araujo’s U.S. citizen son Ronaldo discovered his father’s death through social media, and not from the government or medical professionals.

“I saw a video posted on Facebook that he had been shot. I recognized him immediately,” Ronaldo said, his voice breaking. “Not from his appearance, but from his voice, crying for help as he lay on the street, bleeding out.”

Hopefully, the Salgado Araujo family will get justice, and hopefully so will the families of Martinez, Good, and Alex Pretti.