The White House appears to have edited an image of Nekima Levy Armstrong after her arrest.
Levy Armstrong, a lawyer and a former president of a local NAACP branch, was arrested today after demonstrating at a church service in Saint Paul City in Minnesota this weekend. She organized the protest due to the pastor’s apparent work with ICE, and described it as “a peaceful nonviolent demonstration.” As per the Secretary of Homeland Security, she’s been charged with a conspiracy to prevent people from freely expressing their religion.
This morning, the White House posted an image of Levy Armstrong crying with the caption, “Arrested. Far-left agitator.”
However, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted a picture of Levy Armstrong’s arrest shortly beforehand, in which she was not crying.
Some subsequently speculated that the photo had been digitally altered to change her facial expression to tears, which was then confirmed by CNN‘s Daniel Dale.
When BuzzFeed asked the White House press office for comment, they directed us to a post on X made by the Deputy Assistant to the President and White House Deputy Communications Director Kaelan Dorr. It read, “YET AGAIN to the people who feel the need to reflexively defend perpetrators of heinous crimes in our country I share with you this message: Enforcement of the law will continue. The memes will continue. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”