Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino responded Thursday to criticism from California Gov. Gavin Newsom – who argued the Trump administration official’s trench coat looks like “SS garb.”
“That coat is definitely Border Patrol-issued,” Bovino asserted during an interview with NewsNation’s “On Balance with Leland Vittert.”
“I’ve had it for over 25 years,” he explained. “I bought that as a young agent, approximately 1999.”
At the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this week, Newsom compared Bovino’s long olive green trench coat to something out of Nazi Germany.
Newsom said the commander was “dressed up as if he literally went on eBay and purchased SS garb.”
He was also critical of the tactics of Bovino and other federal agents have used in Minneapolis to nab illegal immigrants.
The governor’s press office further accused Bovino of “walking the streets of America dressed up as a Nazi.”
“What’s interesting here is,” Bovino told Vittert,“ is oh, five, six years ago, I wore that very coat, the one that he’s talking about, to Commissioner Chris Magnus’ coronation there at Customs and Border Protection headquarters in Washington, D.C. … received nothing but compliments on that coat.”
Magnus was nominated by former President Joe Biden in 2021 to head up US Customs and Border Protection.
“That was during the last administration,” Bovino explained. “As you know, fast forward a few years to this administration, all of a sudden, it’s a problem.
“What changed there? Why is it a problem now? But it wasn’t during the last administration.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin backed Bovino’s claims in a statement to the New York Times, telling the outlet the coat is “standard-issue Border Patrol winter dress uniform.”
“There are legitimate policy debates to be had, but manufacturing fake outrage and likening law enforcement to the Nazis or Gestapo is incredibly dangerous,” McLaughlin added.
