Now It’s a Pattern: Another Dem Shares Fake AI Image of Alex Pretti Shooting During Committee Hearing

on

 



The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee just crossed another line by circulating what appears to be an obviously AI-generated image during a public hearing an image supposedly depicting the shooting of Alex Pretti. At some point, this stops looking like a one-off mistake and starts looking like a habit.

There’s a pattern here, and it’s hard to ignore. The same image was first displayed weeks ago by Senator Dick Durbin on the Senate floor. Now Rep. Bennie Thompson is recycling it, helping to spread the same false impression. Either no one on the Democratic side is doing basic due diligence anymore, or accuracy simply isn’t a priority when the image supports the narrative they want.


Thompson’s history makes this worse, not better. This is the same lawmaker who chaired the January 6 select committee an investigation that many Americans viewed as politically driven from the start, and one that was later shown to have presented altered or misleading evidence during its hearings. That background matters when he’s once again pushing questionable material in an official setting.



During the Homeland Security hearing, Thompson described Pretti who reportedly provoked law enforcement while armed before being shot by Border Patrol agents and claimed Americans watched the incident in “horror.” While saying this, a staffer held up a dramatic image meant to look like a still from the shooting. The problem is simple: it wasn’t real. It didn’t come from body cam footage or any verified source. It came from AI.


Anyone who follows conservative media will recognize it immediately. RedState reporter Bonchie was the first to flag the image when Durbin used it on the Senate floor. Durbin’s office later brushed it off, saying the photo was “slightly edited” and that staff hadn’t realized the issue until afterward. That explanation would be more believable if one of the agents in the image wasn’t literally missing his head. Calling that “slight editing” insults the public’s intelligence.


Now the same image is back, this time used by Thompson to accuse DHS Secretary Kristi Noem of “gaslighting the public” and spreading a “demonstrably false story.” The irony is hard to miss. When you’re holding up an AI-generated image with obvious distortions and pretending it represents reality, accusations like that ring hollow.


At this point, Thompson will probably blame a staffer, just like Durbin did. But whether this comes down to incompetence, intentional manipulation, or a mix of both, the result is the same: elected officials using fake evidence to shape public opinion.


Bonchie pointed out that beyond the missing head, the image is full of warped and misshapen details that clearly signal AI generation. There’s no ambiguity here. Yet Democrats like Durbin and Thompson expect people to accept it as authentic until they’re caught, at which point it’s suddenly an innocent mistake.


This behavior fits a broader pattern. Thompson’s previous committee didn’t hesitate to doctor text messages when it suited their political goals. That history makes it hard to give him the benefit of the doubt now.


If Democrats actually had the facts on their side, they wouldn’t need to rely on fake images, altered evidence, or convenient excuses after the damage is done. Facts should stand on their own. When they don’t, it usually says more about the argument than the opposition.

Comments

Post a Comment