Six lawyers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, Minnesota, resigned Tuesday in the face of pressure from the Justice Department in the case of Renee Good, the woman who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent last week, The New York Times reported.
The newspaper, citing sources familiar with the resignations, said the group of prosecutors is headed by the office’s number two, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, who made his decision after being pressured by senior Justice officials to criminally investigate Renee’s widow, Becca Good.
Federal prosecutors resign in Minnesota
Joe is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state.
It’s also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants.
– Governor Tim Walz (@GovTimWalz) January 13, 2026
It also reports that Justice decided not to investigate whether the officer who shot Good violated federal law, in what would be a civil rights case.
Instead, he opened an inquiry into the woman’s and his wife’s ties to activist groups protesting immigration raids.
Thompson previously objected to those decisions, as well as to Justice’s refusal to open an investigation in cooperation with a state agency that deals with police shootings, the newspaper said, citing its sources.
The assistant U.S. attorney, moreover, was leading a Minnesota school aid fraud investigation that began in 2022, and with which the Trump administration has justified its immigration raids and the dispatch of federal enforcement agents, since most of the defendants are of Somali origin, he adds.
The New York Times also quotes Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara as noting that the resignation is a “blow” to such anti-fraud efforts in the state’s state agencies.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz echoed the news on X and said Thompson’s departure is a “loss” for the state and a sign that the president, Donald Trump, is pushing nonpartisan professionals away from the Justice Department and replacing them with “sycophants.”
Thompson has resigned along with prosecutors Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams, Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, Ruth Schneider and Tom Hollenhurst, CBS reports.
Filed under: Federal prosecutors resign in Minnesota
With information from EFE
