An exodus of prosecutors<\/a> who didn\u2019t care for his staff screaming sessions and boorish press conferences. A felony conviction against a Los Angeles County sheriff\u2019s deputy for excessive force that he reduced to a misdemeanor and then unsuccessfully tried to have dismissed.<\/a> Seeking charges against people who dared protest Trump\u2019s deportation deluge<\/a> that his office eventually reduced, dropped or lost in court<\/a> due to lack of evidence despite Essayli publicly boasting they were slam-dunk cases. <\/p>\n The guy can\u2019t even call himself acting U.S. attorney anymore after a judge ruled in October he was \u201cnot lawfully serving<\/a>\u201d in the position since he was never formally appointed in the first place. So you\u2019d think Essayli would hear the music and go back to being an inconsequential California legislator, but no! If there\u2019s one thing Trumpworld has shown, it\u2019s that once you\u2019ve knelt to offer the Dear Leader a lick-and-shine, you better keep it up until your tongue\u2019s as dry as Death Valley.<\/p>\n Which leads us to this weekend. And Essayli\u2019s bootlicking-gone-wrong. <\/p>\n On Saturday morning, Border Patrol agents in Minneapolis shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti<\/a> after they gang-tackled him. He had tried to help a woman shoved to the ground by a federal immigration officer; an officer maced him and he soon collapsed \u2014 and shortly after, was dead. A Department of Homeland Security social media post justified what happened by saying Pretti seemed intent on \u201cwant[ing] to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement\u201d because he was in possession of a legally registered handgun. He never brandished it though. In fact, multiple videos showed<\/a> Pretti clearly holding what looked like a phone as agents swarmed him. <\/p>\n Even though the incident was thousands of miles away from Los Angeles, Essayli had to flick his tongue \u2014 it\u2019s the bootlicker way, after all.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,\u201d he snickered on social media<\/a> hours after Pretti died. \u201cDon\u2019t do it!\u201d He also reshared the posts of right-wing social media influencers Jack Posobiec and Andy Ngo who claimed Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse at a Department of Veterans Affairs hospital, was following \u201cantifa\u201d tactics.<\/p>\n Essayli was soon getting smacked around on social media by gun rights groups,<\/a> including the NRA, which has endorsed Trump in all his presidential races. <\/p>\n A sign is raised in support of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at a candlelight vigil during a peaceful protest at the federal building in Los Angeles on Saturday.<\/p>\n (Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n It blasted his rant as \u201cdangerous and wrong\u201d on social media, adding that \u201cresponsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n The Gun Owners of America, a group that\u2019s even more conservative than the NRA, called Essayli\u2019s comments \u201cuntoward,\u201d leading to the first assistant U.S. attorney \u2014 because bootlickers love their titles \u2014 to whine about the nonprofit \u201cadding words to mischaracterize my statement\u201d even though they directly quoted him.<\/p>\n When history looks back at all the cowards, sycophants, apologists, enablers, henchmen and other miscreants that made Trump possible, the bootlickers will have a starring role. The \u201cI voted for this\u201d tribe \u2014 even when this is cruelty and actions that are more those of a Macbeth<\/a> than an American president. <\/p>\n The bootlicker is a universally reviled archetype. Their bread-and-butter is comforting the most comfortable by afflicting the most afflicted. They try to top fellow bootlickers with even more obsequious acts of flattery, hellbent on making the most damning line of Orwell\u2019s \u201c1984\u201d come to life: \u201cThe Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.\u201d<\/p>\n The bootlicker\u2019s moral compass is malleable. Wherever the Big Boss has moved the goal posts, that\u2019s where he or she will kick the ball. If all goes to hell and America devolves into a rank dictatorship, beware the bootlicker. <\/p>\n The Trump regime currently has a lineup of them that\u2019s like the bootlicking version of the 1927 Yankees.<\/p>\n In addition to Essayli, you have Stephen Miller,<\/a> who kept calling Pretti an \u201cassassin\u201d and \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d on social media as if repeating the slurs would make them true. Vice President JD Vance, who described Renee Good, a woman shot and killed on Jan. 7 by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis after she tried to drive away from him, as a \u201cderanged leftist<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Repeating what the big bootlickers say is a character trait. Call it the bootlicking trickle-down-effect. <\/p>\n There\u2019s Border Patrol chief at large Gregory Bovino, a migra man a federal judge accused of \u201coutright lying<\/a>\u201d during depositions over the actions of his team in Chicago this fall<\/a>. During a news conference about the death of Pretti, Bovino claimed that the victim<\/a> looked like he \u201cwanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement\u201d \u2014 the exact same language used in the original Department of Homeland Security social media post on the killing. Hours later, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also impersonated a macaw, parroting Miller by accusing Pretti of \u201cdomestic terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n On Fox News on Sunday, FBI Director Kash Patel \u2014 the agency that in ye olden days would be leading an impartial investigation into what happened to Good, Pretti and other victims of la migra<\/a> \u2014 told host Maria Bartiromo that \u201cNo one who wants to be peaceful shows up at a protest with a firearm. That led a skeptical-looking Bartiromo, who\u2019s about as liberal as the Spanish Inquisition, to ask, \u201cAnd how was he using that handgun in terms of threatening Border Patrol?\u201d <\/p>\n A wide-eyed Patel could only say he trusted Noem\u2019s version of the events.<\/p>\n Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem speaks during a news conference on Saturday to address an incident where federal immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti during operations in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n (Al Drago \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n These are just some of the most prominent, powerful bootlickers stumbling right now on their own deceit and desperation. <\/p>\n Space prohibits me from quoting all the Republicans who last week were stalwart 2nd Amendment fans now saying Pretti had no right to carry his legally registered firearm to a protest even though they cheered on Kyle Rittenhouse<\/a> when the Wisconsin teen showed up at one very openly carrying an AR-15, which he ended up using to fatally shoot two people who tried to assault him. There\u2019s no evidence Pretti ever handled his firearm during the protest, let alone threatened federal agents with it. <\/p>\n Then there\u2019s the bootlickers who cheered on the Jan. 6 rioters for rising up against what they saw as government tyranny, who insist the dozens of law enforcement officers injured that day were just deep-state agents. Today, those bootlickers are telling folks pushing back against Trump\u2019s police state to respect it.<\/p>\n Obey or die. <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769434519_891_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Homeland](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1769302329_169_.jpeg\")
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