WATCH: 'DHS attacks Americans and acts as if the law doesn't apply to them,' Sen. Hirono tells Noem

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, questioned Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday about the lack of accountability over her department’s agents and aggressive tactics in an oversight hearing by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“Under your leadership, DHS attacks Americans and acts as if the law doesn't apply to them,” Hirono said. “That recklessness and lack of accountability stem from the lies that you and your partners in this regime are constantly telling.”

Aides held up various images behind the senator, such as agents spraying a man with pepper spray or shooting pepper balls at a senior pastor in Chicago, to illustrate the gap between the imagery the American public saw as DHS agents carried out President Donald Trump’s mass deportations agenda and what administration officials were saying about these incidents.

Hirono also invoked the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, two U.S. citizens fatally shot by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year. Hirono said Noem blamed Good following her death, accusing her of committing an “act of domestic terrorism.”

“The lies that you and this regime spread are creating a culture that fosters abuse of power,” the senator said. “This is the reason we need clear guardrails on DHS,” saying agents should be unmasked and stop the use of warrantless searches.

Noem’s agency has been roiled by turmoil and public outcry in recent days. The shooting of two U.S. citizens by federal officers in Minneapolis prompted weeks of protests in the Twin Cities area. Trump officials, including Noem, accused the victims of committing acts of “domestic terrorism.”

But bystander videos challenged the administration’s narrative of the high-profile shooting deaths, and documented DHS deploying other aggressive tactics. Greater scrutiny by Democrats into the ways the Trump administration has been carrying out his mass deportation agenda led to a lapse in the agency’s funding and partial government shutdown.

Congressional lawmakers have yet to reach a deal to fund the department, though there are areas of bipartisan agreement, such as a body camera requirement for immigration enforcement agents.

Noem will also field questions Wednesday from the House Judiciary Committee.

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