It sure looks like the Trump administration is trying to cover up a murder.

Within hours after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, in Minneapolis, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told Americans she now had all the answers.

“It was an act of domestic terrorism,” Noem announced during an unrelated news conference at the Texas border on Wednesday.

Good, who had not yet been identified, “attacked [ICE agents] and those around them” and “tried to run over and ram them with his vehicle,” Noem continued.

It was the first indication that President Donald Trump’s administration would be playing offense, not defense, over the shooting, demonizing Good and expelling Minnesota authorities from the FBI investigation into the shooting.

As Noem spoke, images of the incident were already circulating that did not support her authoritative rhetoric about what happened. Multiple camera angles showed masked ICE agents approaching Good’s car as it partially blocked a road, grabbing the door handle, reaching through the open window of her vehicle, and then an officer (identified by The Star Tribune as Jonathan Ross) shooting her dead at point-blank range as she tried to get away from the agents, who, for the most part, lack the legal authority to arrest U.S. citizens.

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A witness to the incident told News themezone that Good was “obviously scared” and trying to get away from the officers. No video of the incident shows Good attempting to run over the officers; shows her turning her wheels away from them in the final moments of her life. It’s unclear if Good’s car made contact with the officer, who was seen on video driving away from the scene.

But even as additional footage of the incident emerged throughout the day, Noem escalated her claims, baselessly suggesting that Good was involved in a “coordinated” group that had been “trained and told how to use their vehicles to impede police operations.”

The family told Minnesota Public Radio that Good was on her way home from dropping off her 6-year-old son at school when she encountered ICE agents. She was not an activist and was not known to be involved in protests, the family said.

As the day progressed, more members of the Trump administration joined in the demonization of Good.

“[T]”The woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, and then violently, intentionally and callously ran over the ICE officer, who appears to have shot her in self-defense,” Trump said on Truth Social. It’s “hard to believe” that the officer who killed Good is alive, he continued.

Trump did not back down when the New York Times pressed him, calling it a “cruel situation.”

Vice President JD Vance criticized her as “a deranged leftist who tried to run him over” on social media. He doubled down during a press conference Thursday, claiming without any evidence: “That woman was part of a broader left-wing network to attack, doxx, assault and make it impossible for our ICE officers to do their jobs.”

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In another social media post Thursday, he called reactions to his death “absurd” and said Good’s death was his fault.

Echoing Noem and Vance, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt leaned into conspiracy theory talk at the news conference with Vance, saying the shooting occurred because of a “larger, more sinister left-wing movement.”

The rhetoric has outraged Democrats and surprised at least one Republican.

“I was surprised by the level of certainty in her comments…most of the time you don’t draw definitive conclusions like she did at that press conference while the scene is still being processed,” Sen. Tom Tillis (R-N.C.) told News themezone of Noem on Thursday.

Little hope for accountability

The Trump administration is denying state and local officials any access to the investigation into the shooting, offering little hope for a nonpartisan investigation into what happened.

“They have no jurisdiction in this investigation,” Noem said Thursday. He then criticized officials in Minneapolis and Minnesota for not doing enough to help ICE.

His comments came after Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Superintendent Drew Evans issued a statement saying the U.S. attorney’s office had barred him from participating in the federal investigation.

“Without full access to evidence, witnesses, and information collected, we cannot meet the investigative standards required by Minnesota law and the public,” Evans wrote. “As a result, the BCA has reluctantly withdrawn from the investigation.”

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It is impossible for Minnesota to do its own investigation without the cooperation of the federal government, state Department of Public Safety Commissioner Bob Jacobson explained Thursday.

“They have all the evidence in the original investigative notes and reports. We don’t have any of that. They haven’t shared any of that with us,” he said. “We would welcome the opportunity to once again … find the answers that the public deserves. Without that information, without that help from the FBI or the federal government, we would not be able to initiate and conduct a thorough investigation.”

Noem said Thursday that she is already confident that the investigation will clear the ICE agent of any wrongdoing.

“We have expected all the review policies and procedures to be exactly that he acted appropriately to protect his life and the lives of his colleagues,” he said Thursday when asked to share more information about himself.

Following Noem’s comments, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) said getting a fair outcome from an investigation into the shooting “seems very, very difficult” now.

“I say this only because people in positions of power have already made judgments, from the president to the vice president to Kristi Noem, have stood up and told you things that are verifiably false, verifiably inaccurate,” a despondent Walz said at a news conference. “They have determined the character of a 37-year-old mother they didn’t even know.”