Six federal prosecutors resigned on Tuesday after reportedly pushing back against a Department of Justice order to investigate the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent last week in Minneapolis.
The resignation also comes one day after four leaders of a federal Justice Department unit that investigates police killings also resigned in protest of the administration’s investigation into Good’s death.
Among those who resigned on Tuesday was Joseph H. Thompson, the prosecutor who led a recent investigation into wide-scale fraud in Minnesota, according to multiple reports. Thompson was selected by President Donald Trump last summer to briefly serve as acting U.S. Attorney in Minnesota, and oversaw the case against the man accused of shooting and killing state House Speaker Melissa Hortman.
In a post to X, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said Thompson’s resignation marks “a huge loss for our state.”
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“It’s also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants,” Walz continued.
Harry Jacobs, Thompson’s deputy in the fraud investigation, also reportedly resigned, along with Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, the chief of the violent and major crimes unit, and Melinda Williams, who previously served as chief of the office of criminal prosecution.
Additionally, MSNOW reported on Monday that at least four top officials in the criminal section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, responsible for investigating officer-involved shootings carried out by federal law enforcement officials, left their jobs this week after the assistant attorney general for civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, announced the unit would not be investigating the shooting of Good.
Just hours after the fatal shooting and before any investigation had taken place, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had labeled Good a “domestic terrorist.” The New York Times also revealed this week that the FBI was looking into ties between Good’s family members and their possible connections to activist groups.
In a speech in Detroit on Tuesday, President Donald Trump continued the administration’s depiction of the deadly shooting by referring to Good and other bystanders as paid agitators.
Good’s death sparked a series of large protests across the country over the past week, particularly in Minneapolis, where clashes between demonstrators and federal officers have broken out across the city.
Some lawmakers have also called for an independent investigation into the shooting and are fighting back on multiple fronts.
In the wake of the shooting, Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly introduced impeachment articles against Noem and support has since grown to include nearly 50 signatures. Other Democrats have filed litigation against DHS for attempting to restrict congressional oversight visits of ICE facilities.
In response to the protests, Noem announced the deployment of hundreds more federal agents to Minneapolis — in addition to the 2,000 immigration officers already deployed to the state.
Over the weekend, it was revealed that the FBI had opted to handle the investigation into Good’s shooting without coordinating with local officials. The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension said in a statement it had “reluctantly withdrawn” from the investigation after the FBI pulled its clearances.
“If the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI were to reconsider this approach and express a willingness to resume a joint investigation, the BCA is prepared to reengage in support of our shared goal of public safety in Minnesota,” a Thursday statement said.
Monday evening, state officials in both Minnesota and Illinois, which has also been the target of a recent surge of federal immigration agents, announced separate lawsuits against the Trump administration and DHS seeking to end the aggressive federal immigration tactics.
In its 103-page filing, Illinois and Chicago officials called the surge an “organized bombardment” of Illinois that has created “a climate of fear” for residents of Chicago.
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