The Justice Department is deploying military attorneys to Minnesota after at least six federal prosecutors resigned over pressure to investigate the widow of Renee Nicole Good rather than the ICE agent who killed her, according to a senior DOJ official.
Joseph Thompson, the most senior prosecutor to resign, had served as acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota and was the lead prosecutor in the Feeding Our Future case, charging 78 people with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs.
The attorneys felt pressure from Justice Department leadership to investigate any ties to activist groups by Good and her widow. They were concerned about a decision to cut out state and local authorities from the federal investigation, according to law enforcement officials with knowledge of their decisions.
Thompson objected to the idea of a criminal investigation of Becca Good, Renee Nicole Good’s widow, and to the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, ICE agent Jonathan Ross. He also opposed excluding the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from the investigation, a decision senior DOJ officials overruled.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department does not believe there is evidence to back a criminal investigation into the actions of the ICE agent involved in the deadly shooting.
Military lawyers from the Judge Advocate General’s Corps have agreed to take temporary assignments as special assistant U.S. attorneys in Minneapolis, while prosecutors from Detroit and Los Angeles have offered support. White-collar health care fraud specialists from the Criminal Division are also being deployed.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey called the prosecutors heroes and said the people pushing to prosecute Renee’s widow are monsters. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, herself a former prosecutor, said the family and loved ones of Renee Good deserve justice, not political attacks.
Drew Evans, superintendent of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the state is losing a true public servant with Thompson’s departure and warned that the absence of a credible investigation into Renee Good’s killing stands to undermine trust.
The resignations account for nearly 10% of the Minnesota office’s line attorneys and include some of those with the greatest institutional knowledge of major fraud investigations in the state.
At least six leaders in the DOJ Civil Rights Division’s criminal section also took early retirement, though a DOJ official said those departures were planned before Good’s shooting.
