Soon after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, Donald Trump’s Justice Department made it clear it had no intention of investigating the deadly incident. It did, however, take an interest in investigating the victim’s family.
For those who worked at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, this proved untenable: At least six federal prosecutors in the office resigned, including the prosecutor who oversaw the fraud investigation that the White House claims to care so much about.
After federal immigration agents later shot and killed Alex Pretti, conditions apparently worsened. The Washington Post reported that some of the remaining prosecutors in Minneapolis have told U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, the Trump administration appointee leading the office, “that they feel deeply frustrated by the Justice Department’s response to the fatal shootings,” and left open the possibility of additional resignations that would leave the office “unable to handle its current caseload.”
Two officials familiar with the office told the Post that “at least one prosecutor in the office’s criminal division has resigned” following a meeting last week with Rosen.
The New York Times published a related report, referencing “crisis” conditions in the office.
[The Trump administration’s recent strategy] has left the U.S. attorney’s office in Minneapolis, one of the most respected in the nation, in crisis. On Tuesday, prosecutors in the office’s criminal division confronted the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, Daniel Rosen, and an aide to Mr. Blanche, over concerns that they were being asked to execute orders that went against the department’s mission and best practices, according to four people briefed on the exchange.
Some of the prosecutors suggested they were considering resigning in protest, those people said, days after six others had quit over similar concerns.
On Friday afternoon, the day after the Post’s and Times’ reports were published, a reporter asked Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche at a press conference about the conditions in the Minneapolis office.
Blanche, a former Trump defense attorney, heard the questions, gathered his belongings and promptly walked away from the lectern without saying a word.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis is just one of many offices for federal prosecutors, but the broader pattern of an unraveling Justice Department is difficult to miss.
Trump’s DOJ is making awful mistakes, some devastating and some amateurish. The White House has usurped control and has set the department’s credibility on fire. The DOJ is acting like Trump’s personal law firm, as key personnel have been redirected from their core responsibilities to pursue the president’s pet endeavors. It’s been weaponized to an almost cartoonish degree and is losing key cases. And once-rare mass resignations are becoming far more common.
The crisis, in other words, is not limited to Minneapolis.
