Trump administration efforts to shift blame for ICE shooting wreak havoc on Minnesota US attorney’s office
By Evan Perez, Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN
(CNN) — The Trump administration’s efforts to investigate Renee Good and others around her, and not the ICE officer who shot her in Minneapolis, is wreaking havoc on the US attorney’s office in Minnesota, which is leading the probe.
At least half a dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned amid growing tensions between state and federal officials since the shooting on Wednesday, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. The Trump administration quickly declared that the agent, Jonathan Ross, acted appropriately and alleged that responsibility for the fatal shooting lay with Good and those around her.
“There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement to CNN Tuesday in the clearest indication so far that federal investigators aren’t examining the conduct of the ICE officer, while at the same time blocking local authorities from using their jurisdiction to investigate the shooting.
Among the Minnesota prosecutors who resigned is Joseph Thompson, the second-in-charge at the US attorney’s office, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Harry Jacobs, a senior prosecutor who together with Thompson lead the Justice Department’s yearslong effort to tackle social services fraud in Minnesota, also resigned.
Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis initially struck an agreement with local prosecutors and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension to jointly investigate the shooting, a routine arrangement that typically follows federal officer-involved shooting incidents. Minnesota authorities said they were later informed by the FBI that the US attorney’s office had ordered federal agents to conduct the investigation alone, without the involvement of local authorities.
That decision came from Washington, the source said. At the same time, lawyers in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division were told that they would not be assisting in the probe into the shooting, another person familiar with the matter told CNN.
In the past, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has typically launched investigations into law enforcement related shootings, instances of potential police brutality or potential hate crimes to make sure that the officers did not breach the rights of a victim — even if that investigation never results in charges. Departing from that tradition is highly unusual.
CNN previously reported the decision to block local investigators from the probe was prompted by distrust among federal officials in Washington that the local officials could be trusted with information about the case. Vice President JD Vance told reporters that there were concerns about leaks and that the ICE agents involved would be doxxed, or have their personal information released to the public.
The investigation has been marked by other unusual moves that were a sharp departure from how FBI investigations typically run.
Video from the cellphone of the officer who fired the shots, a key piece of evidence, became public through a conservative Minnesota media outlet. President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have publicly declared the officer’s actions as justified and placed blame on Good and others.
Minnesota authorities have appealed to the public to provide state investigators with all video and other information to assist their review of the incident. But local prosecutors are hobbled by the federal block on access to evidence the FBI collected in the case.
They have no access to Good’s vehicle, shell casings recovered from the scene, or any of the investigation, Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney, said in an interview with CNN’s Kasie Hunt.
The-CNN-Wire
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