By Max Saltman, CNN

(CNN) — ‘Twas the week before Christmas in a Montreal store, when Santa stole groceries, then walked out the door.

A group of thieves wearing Santa Clause and elf costumes stole cartloads of groceries from a supermarket in Montreal on Monday night, with an activist group later claiming credit for what they said was a Robin Hood-inspired heist to provide food to the needy.

Montreal Police Spokesperson Johany Charland told CNN that around 9:40 p.m. on Monday night, a group of people stole “what we assume is food” from the store.

“The investigation is still ongoing,” Charland said, with police combing through camera footage and interviewing witnesses.

Charland said that the police could not comment on the motive claimed by the activists.

Edited video posted by activist group “Les Soulèvements du Fleuve” on Instagram shows several individuals dressed in Santa suits – complete with big, white beards – and elf hats raiding the shelves of a Metro grocery store in Montreal.

The groceries, the group claims, were then “redistributed” to those in need by the “Robins of the Alleys” – an apparent nod to the legendary figure of Robin Hood, who stole from the rich to give to the poor.

The group said in another post that some of the goods were left under a tree in a Montreal neighborhood and some distributed to community fridges. Les Soulèvements du Fleuve included a photo of gift bags underneath a tree, but did not post footage of the “redistribution.”

“A handful of businesses are holding our vital needs hostage,” Les Soulèvements du Fleuve said in the post. “They continue to suffocate the population, to siphon (from) them as much money as possible, simply because they can. For us, this is theft and they are the thieves.”

According to reporting by CNN’s Canadian broadcast partner CBC, the latest inflation metrics from the Canadian government show that grocery prices in the country grew nearly 5% year-over-year, despite lessening inflation in other categories.

In a statement to CNN, the Metro grocery chain’s spokesperson Geneviève Grégoire said that whatever the stated motives, retail crime is “unacceptable.”

“Many factors influence food inflation, including disruptions in the global supply chain, volatility in commodity prices, changes in international trade conditions, and retail crime,” Grégoire said. “The prices on store shelves directly reflect the costs of the supply chain.”

Gregoire added that the chain has contributed millions of dollars to charity, “including 1.15 million dollars to food banks, and provided 81.6 million dollars’ worth of food products.”

CNN reached out to Les Soulèvements du Fleuve for comment.

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By Tierney Sneed, CNN

(CNN) — A top Justice Department attorney argued in court on Friday that President Donald Trump’s inflammatory rally speech before the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol was at least partially aimed at furthering the broader interests of the United States.

At the civil lawsuits hearing that Democratic members of Congress and law enforcement officers brought against the president for his January 6-related conduct, DOJ attorney Brett Shumate said the “culmination” of the speech was to “propose reforms” to election rules. He urged the court to look at the speech as one meant to communicate to the public and to Congress about perceived election fraud, making it part of Trump’s duties as a president.

Shumate, a Trump appointee who leads the Department’s Civil Division, was arguing in favor of a DOJ maneuver that would allow the government to shield Trump from certain claims in the lawsuits. The move would make the US government — rather than Trump — the defendant in the allegations that Trump broke various DC laws, under the theory that Trump’s alleged conduct that day was connected to his employment by the federal government.

The comments also come as the Trump administration has tried to rewrite the narrative about the events of January 6, which left a policeman dead, dozens injured and also led to police killing a protester. The president pardoned hundreds of defendants for their January 6-related offenses.

The intervention by the Justice Department seeking to protect Trump in the civil case comes after federal prosecutors previously argued that his conduct that day was criminal and not subject to immunity. Even in proceedings not against Trump, the administration has tried to sanitize the violence of that day. The department put two DOJ prosecutors on leave who described the Capitol attack as stemming from a “mob of rioters” in a sentencing memo where a January 6 defendant was convicted of crimes not related to the Capitol breach. The sentencing memo was refiled with the language removed.

In the January 6 civil case, Trump’s opponents are arguing his alleged conduct does not meet the criteria for the government to step in for his defense, because his actions that day concerned efforts to stay in the presidency, not his obligations as the office-holder.

Shumate did not dispute that Trump’s Ellipse remarks that day were also aimed at boosting his personal reelection efforts. But he said that as long as a “scintilla” of evidence showed that the speech had a dual purpose that furthered the interests of the United States, the court should look at it as part of Trump’s duties for the government and allow the government to replace him as the defendant.

Ed Caspar, a lawyer for Trump’s opponents who argued against the maneuver, described the speech’s remarks about election reform proposals as “thr

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