South Dakota Republican Governor Kristi Noem has been under bipartisan fire since Friday after an excerpt from her soon-to-be published book reveals her bragging about shooting to death her 14-month old puppy, and later that day, a goat. Noem, considered at least until last week a top contender to be Donald Trump’s vice presidential running mate, is doubling-down defending herself but now she’s serving up some “legal cover” as well.

“I can understand why some people are upset about a 20 year old story of Cricket, one of the working dogs at our ranch, in my upcoming book — No Going Back. The book is filled with many honest stories of my life, good and bad days, challenges, painful decisions, and lessons learned,” she wrote on Sunday, after The Guardian‘s damning report. “The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down. Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime on Monday reports the governor is “providing herself legal cover for the act.”

Noem “acknowledged that ‘some people’ were upset about the story — and she specified that it happened two decades ago, seeming to place the incident well beyond the statute of limitations.”

RELATED: Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

“Noem additionally cited South Dakota law in support of her decision,” Law & Crime adds, noting the “reported book excerpt had said that Cricket tried to bite Noem and attacked her chickens.”

“The fact is, South Dakota law states that dogs who attack and kill livestock can be put down,” Noem wrote, an apparent attempt to preempt any possible legal issues. “Given that Cricket had shown aggressive behavior toward people by biting them, I decided what I did.”

Law & Crime explains that “South Dakota notes that an exemption to animal cruelty laws is the ‘destruction of dangerous animals.’ The law specifies that ‘[a]ny humane killing of an animal’ and ‘[a]ny reasonable action taken by a person for the destruction or control of an animal known to be dangerous, a threat, or injurious to life, limb, or property’ are exempt from prosecution.”

Noting that Noem’s attempt “to lean into the right’s embrace of political incorrectness … didn’t fly with members of her own party,” The Daily Beast pointed to well-known Republicans including former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farrah Griffin and Meghan McCain who publicly condemned Noem’s actions.

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

The Guardian’s excerpt from Noem’s book does not state that Cricket bit people, although Noem states Cricket “whipped around” to bite her. It’s possible biting others is in the book but did not make it into The Guardian’s report.

Describing Cricket killing chickens, Noem “grabbed Cricket, she says, [and] the dog ‘whipped around to bite me’. Then, as the chickens’ owner wept, Noem repeatedly apologised, wrote the shocked family a check ‘for the price they asked, and helped them dispose of the carcasses littering the scene of the crime’.”

“Through it all, Noem says, Cricket was ‘the picture of pure joy’,” The Guardian reports. “’I hated that dog,’ Noem writes, adding that Cricket had proved herself ‘untrainable’, ‘dangerous to anyone she came in contact with’ and ‘less than worthless … as a hunting dog’.”

Meanwhile, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski on Monday said Noem’s pride and decision making surrounding killing the puppy make her unfit to be “in charge.”

Describing how she grew up on a family farm, Brzezinski said they hunted, and “there was absolutely a dense of life and death.” There was “never a joy in killing and there was a respect to it, and a process if you were hunting.”

READ MORE: CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

“But this story was more about how she felt killing an animal, and that’s what’s scary about it – the impatience, kind of like a switch flipped in her brain and she decided she needed to kill it? Like this is not someone you want in charge, not someone thinking through the process of life and death.”

“The most remarkable part of it,” Scarborough added, “is that the conservative movement has been so corrupted by Donald Trump and his reached such new lows, that she actually put that in, about the killing of a happy puppy because she thought it would help her with the base.”

Watch below or at this link.

“The conservative movement has been so corrupted by Trump and has reached such new lows that [Kristi Noem] actually put that in [her book], about killing a happy puppy, because she thought it would help her with the base.”

— @JoeNBC on Noem’s story about killing her puppy pic.twitter.com/MAMbY3K9Re

— Morning Joe (@Morning_Joe) April 29, 2024

Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

SCOTUS Justice Sonia Sotomayor: “If the president … orders someone to assassinate [a rival], is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?”

Trump attorney D. John Sauer: “It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act.” pic.twitter.com/RddEEYIUrR

— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2024

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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