A protester holds a photo of of Renée Good outside the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA via AP
More resignations of federal prosecutors are expected at the US Attorney’s Office in Minnesota amid ongoing frustration over the Trump administration’s response to the fatal shooting of Renée Good by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.“I have heard there may be more people leaving, people I would consider senior and respected career prosecutors,” said Anders Folk, a former acting US attorney in Minnesota, who left the office in 2021 to work for the Justice Department in Washington, DC, under former President Biden.
Minnesota Federal Defender Katherian Roe, in a staffwide email obtained by the Sahan Journal, also wrote that “more resignations are anticipated” at the US Attorney’s Office. “It’s a sign that something is not right” there, added Folk, who is still in touch with colleagues in the office and is now running for Hennepin County Attorney.
Already this week, at least five federal prosecutors in Minnesota announced their resignations. Among them was the office’s second-in-command, Joseph Thompson, who was overseeing the welfare fraud investigation involving Somali immigrants that President Trump used as a pretext to send his immigration force to Minneapolis.
The prosecutors did not give a reason for their departures, but their announcements came shortly after the Justice Department ordered the office to investigate Good’s wife rather than focus on the shooter and the shooting. “It’s a big deal, and this is fairly unprecedented,” Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor now based in Los Angeles, said of the resignations. “You have so many leaving, and frankly on principle: We are living in unique times where prosecutors are being asked to do things they’ve never had to do before. That’s not what they signed up for.” Five senior prosecutors at the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in DC—a unit that investigates police killings—also resigned this week.
Since Trump’s reelection, the Minnesota US Attorney’s Office has seen a steady stream of departures. Nearly 50 out of about 135 staffers have left their positions, according to a person with knowledge of the departures who did not want to be named, and who confirmed that more resignations are likely. Some of the office’s attorneys left earlier this year as Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was working to downsize the federal workforce. Others quit in December, after ICE launched its Minneapolis surge.
“They’ve had a major brain drain, and I don’t know who’s going to be left to do the cases.”
The administration’s response to the Good’s death on January 7 appears to have been the last straw for some of the prosecutors. The 37-year-old mom, who had partly blocked a neighborhood street with her vehicle, was fatally shot in the head and chest by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. The killing, which has sparked nationwide protests, was captured on video by multiple bystanders, and also by Ross, who recorded the encounter on his phone. In his footage, a male voice, which the New York Times has verified was Ross, could be heard calling Good a “fucking bitch” after he shot her.
The Justice Department has defended Ross, accusing Good of trying to run him over, and ordered the US Attorney’s Office to focus on Good’s wife, who was on hand protesting the ICE operation. But a frame-by-frame video analysis from the Times clearly shows that Ross shot Good as she was steering her vehicle away from him, and that he was not run over, as Trump and other federal officials claimed, or struck by the vehicle in a substantial way.
The administration quickly excluded the Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from its investigation, making it harder for state authorities to gather evidence. As staffers at the US Attorney’s Office watched the video footage, some were crying or otherwise visibly emotional about the death and the Justice Department’s response, according to the person with knowledge of the departures.
Since Operation Metro Surge began in the Twin Cities, federal immigration officers have reportedly arrested more than 2,400 people. To deal with the influx of cases, given its reduced staff, the US Attorney’s Office is receiving help from military attorneys known as Judge Advocates General. Several JAGs are already stationed at the office, and the Pentagon, according to CNN plans to send about 25 more.
As videos spread showing brutal ICE encounters in the Twin Cities—officers dragging a disabled woman out of her car as she tried to drive to a doctor’s appointment; carrying away an unconscious man in handcuffs; throwing a flashbang at a car with six children, and more—protesters are calling for accountability and yelling at the masked federal officers to get out of their neighborhoods.
But to file civil rights cases against ICE agents or any other law enforcement, prosecutors at the US Attorney’s Office would need approval from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys in DC. And that “feels impossible,” said the person with knowledge of the resignations, “when you can’t even get an investigation for a woman who was shot point-blank in the head.”
Folk, the former acting US attorney, told me that he’s never seen anything like the recent spate of resignations in Minnesota. It’s unusual, he said, for so many career prosecutors, as opposed to political appointees, to leave at the same time. “It’s deeply concerning to many members of the legal community here,” Folk told me, and he worries about the consequences for other investigations, including the ones looking into fraud in state welfare programs and the assassinations of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, last year.
At least some of the attorneys who resigned this week had planned to use their accumulated leave to stay on longer and help with the transition, but the Justice Department fired them after they announced their intentions, abruptly blocked their credentials, and had them escorted our of the building.
The Minnesota US Attorney’s Office had fewer than 30 prosecutors prior to the latest departures—that’s less than half of what the full head count should be, Folk said. Former federal prosecutor Levenson added that it might be difficult for the office to hire new attorneys, given the explosive political environment. “People of the caliber you used to get at US attorney’s offices aren’t interested in the job; they’ve had a major brain drain, and I don’t know who’s going to be left to do the cases,” she said.
“This will have an impact for years to come.”