Any prosecution tied to Saturday's fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents in Minneapolis could end up in federal court, even if charges are filed at the local level, Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law School professor emeritus, said on Newsmax, Sunday.
"The state has the power to investigate, and they could actually prosecute even if the federal government doesn’t want to," Dershowitz said on Newsmax's "Sunday Report." "But then the defendant can remove the case from state court to federal court, where the case would have to be tried."
Federal agents can seek to move cases from state to federal court, he added, referencing President Donald Trump’s own effort to do so in New York.
"If you’re a federal agent, you can remove your case from state court and have it tried in federal court," Dershowitz said, noting that Trump's push to remove his case to federal court is now pending.
Meanwhile, former Sen. Rick Santorum, a Newsmax senior political analyst, faulted Minnesota leaders for what he said was a lack of coordination with federal authorities and said local police should have been providing crowd control and protection for federal agents.
"They have not cooperated at all in doing what local police generally do, which is provide a protection, a shield of protection around federal agents doing their job," he said.
"There’s usually coordination between the state and the municipality and the federal government," Santorum said. "ICE agents and Border patrol agents should not be doing crowd control.
"That’s just not what they do. That’s the job of the local police.”
Santorum said the absence of coordination "added to the problem" and said local officials should have been "de-escalating these types of incidents."
Later, Santorum said immigration enforcement and deportations were once less partisan, and he criticized Democrats for what he said was using the situation for political leverage.
"It’s unfortunate because you go back to the Obama administration, to all the Clinton administration, you know, border enforcement and arresting and deporting illegal immigrants was something that was not a partisan issue," he said.
Dershowitz later said federal officials are constitutionally allowed to enter any state to enforce federal law and criticized efforts by state officials not to cooperate.
Dershowitz said: "The Constitution is the Constitution, and federal officials are allowed to come into any state to enforce federal law."
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