Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison smiles as U.S. Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) raises his voice during a Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 12, 2026. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
Sen Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) couldn't hold back his emotions when Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison smiled during a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on Thursday.
"I, as a government official, would have said, 'Back off. Let us work with ICE. Let’s cooperate with them. Let’s see if we can de-escalate this,'" Johnson said, criticizing the way Ellison spoke out about the shooting deaths of Renée Nicole Good and Alex Jeffrey Pretti.
"Two people are dead because you encouraged them to put themselves into harm’s way, and now you’re exploiting those two murders," Johnson claimed, blaming Ellison and others for causing conflict. "That was a tragedy. It never should have happened. We can investigate, but I can’t imagine being a law enforcement official where I know my colleagues have been shot at, their vehicles rammed."
Johnson went on to claim that there were "trained activists" deployed to Minneapolis.
"By the way, we know at least one of those activists had a semiautomatic pistol with extra clips," he claimed. "So now you’re an ICE officer, you’re doing enforcement action. You’ve got a team behind you trying to protect you. You’ve got all these trained activists behind you. Is there any wonder they’re at hair-trigger alert? A tragedy was going to happen and you encouraged it."
"You ought to feel damn guilty about it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman," Johnson closed.
Ellison just grinned at his outburst.
"Yeah, sit there and smirk! Smirk! Sick! It is despicable what you’ve done!" Johnson yelled.
Ellison replied that everything Johnson said "was untrue."
"It was a nice theatrical performance, but it was all lies," Ellison added.
The chairman called on Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) to speak, when Johnson shouted off the microphone, "You disgust me."