According to media reports, several federal prosecutors have resigned from their positions in protest against the administration of US President Donald Trump. The terminations affect the Civil Rights Division of the Ministry of Justice WashingtonDC and the federal prosecutor’s office in Minneapolis. According to reports, six prosecutors submitted their resignations in the latter case alone. Their reasons also include the instruction from the leadership of the US Department of Justice to investigate Renee Good’s widow, as stated Washington Post writes. Good was last week by an ICE immigration officer killed in Minneapolis.
In Washington, DC, at least five senior prosecutors in the Civil Rights Division reportedly resigned. They had previously been told that they would not be involved in the investigation into the fatal shooting in the state Minnesota would be involved, writes the Reuters news agency. Typically, that is exactly what this department does: it is the sole agency that deals with criminal violations of civil rights laws. The Justice Department relies on the department to prosecute serious cases of police brutality and hate crimes.
However, Assistant Attorney General Todd Blanche said Tuesday that there is currently “no basis” for an investigation into possible civil rights violations by Renee Nicole Good. Blanche did not explain how he came to this conclusion.
In the incident in Minneapolis on January 7, an ICE officer had shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good. Trump’s administration has portrayed Good as a “domestic terrorist” since the incident, which the official said
killed in an act of self-defense
after she “ran over” him. This account is strongly rejected by local officials. Citing videos of the incident, they emphasize that Good drove her vehicle away from the ICE officer and posed no threat to the man. The UN human rights office called for one independent investigation into the crime.
Tim Walz criticizes the displacement of experienced lawyers
The Washington Post writes that both the Criminal Justice Division of the Civil Rights Division and the Attorney General’s Office in Minnesota are affected by the departures their most experienced prosecutors lose.
Among the lawyers who resigned in Minnesota was the Minnesota Star Tribune According to Joe Thompson, the state’s chief federal prosecutor and spokesman for fraud detection. The reason for his resignation was also that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension was excluded from the investigation into the Renee Good case. Minnesota’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz was quoted in US media as sayingThompson’s resignation was a direct result of President Trump pushing experienced experts out of office and replacing them with “sycophants”.
