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By Sharon Zhang / Truthout
Apush by the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the widow of Renee Nicole Good after her tragic killing at the hands of a federal immigration officer has sparked a mass resignation of federal prosecutors in Minnesota, reports say.
According to reports, at least a dozen federal prosecutors across Washington and Minnesota have indicated their plans to resign. This includes six federal prosecutors in the state who left their jobs on Tuesday, and another six top prosecutors in the criminal section of the Justice Department in D.C..
Among those resigning was the second in command at the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, Joseph H. Thompson, The New York Times reported, citing three sources familiar.
The group also includes the leaders of the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department, which typically investigates police killings — including the section’s chief, principal deputy chief, deputy chief, and acting deputy chief, according to MS NOW.
The resignations came as a result of a push by top Justice Department officials to investigate Good’s widow, a move that has sparked outrage over the seeming mission to punish a family already grieving the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent’s brutal and public killing of Good.
They also come after the DOJ has decided not to investigate Good’s killer, Jonathan Ross. Last week, Trump appointee Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights, informed the unit it would not be investigating Ross. This week, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche — a Trump appointee who represented the president during his New York criminal trial — said that there is “no basis” to open an investigation into Ross.
The administration has mounted an all-out effort to shield the ICE agent from any form of accountability, spreading lie after lie about Good and the circumstances surrounding her killing.
Among other things, the DOJ’s push will disrupt key fraud investigations in Minnesota. Thompson and other prosecutors who stepped down in the Minnesota office were key figures in these probes of fraud that the Trump administration has claimed it’s cracking down on — but has rather been seemingly using as an excuse to eliminate and suspend child care benefits in states that voted against him in the presidential election.
The DOJ has opened an investigation into Good and her widow to probe possible connections to activist groups opposing Trump’s immigration raids.
Meanwhile, the FBI has assumed sole responsibility for the investigation into Ross, and has cut out local prosecutors from being able to access information key to the case.
Federal agents’ violence has continued unchecked. Activists said that a federal agent shot an activist in the face with a “less lethal” weapon in the Los Angeles area on Friday while he was engaged in a protest. The activist went to the hospital, and is now blind in one eye as a result of the incident, he said.
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Sharon Zhang
Sharon Zhang is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.