WASHINGTON — At least a dozen federal prosecutors have indicated plans to leave the Justice Department over the Trump administration’s handling of the fatal shooting of a Minnesota woman by an immigration officer and other civil rights cases, according to three people familiar with the situation.
The departures spanned the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in Washington and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis, the sources said.
Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota have resigned over a request from Justice Department leadership to investigate the widow of 37-year-old Renee Good, who was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, according to two of the sources.
It was not clear exactly what DOJ officials wanted to investigate, but Trump administration officials have accused Good of impeding an immigration operation. The sources spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive internal matter.
Another six senior prosecutors in the criminal section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division also informed the department they planned to leave.
The head of the division, Harmeet Dhillon, an appointee of President Donald Trump, informed the unit last week they would not be involved in the probe of the Minnesota shooting, two sources said.
The section typically plays a leading role working with FBI agents to investigate potential civil rights violations and use of force by law enforcement officers. Several of the prosecutors accepted an early retirement offer from the Trump administration, some of the sources said.
The resignations are the latest sign of tumult in the Justice Department under Trump, which has fired and expelled dozens of career officials and pursued investigations of Trump’s perceived political enemies.
The departures also prompted renewed concern about the federal investigation into the shooting, which has prompted protests nationwide and drawn renewed scrutiny of the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown in U.S. cities.
The Minnesota probe was only one factor in the decision of the civil rights lawyers to leave the department. The prosecutors, veteran lawyers who had served across presidential administrations, had grown disillusioned with the direction of the division, whose priorities had been reshaped to align with Trump, according to the sources.
A Justice Department official confirmed the departures from the Civil Rights Division. The lawyers who requested to participate in an early retirement program did so well before the Minnesota shooting, the official said.
The official said Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting an internal investigation into the shooting in parallel with the FBI.
“There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation,” deputy attorney general Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Tension erupted in Minnesota last week, when a federal immigration officer shot and killed Good, a 37-year-old mother of three who was observing the federal law enforcement action.
The Trump administration accused Good of attempting to ram the officer with her vehicle, a claim state officials disputed.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, the chief state prosecutor in Minneapolis, told Reuters on Tuesday that the departures at the Justice Department are an indication that career prosecutors are “not being allowed to do their job.”
“And that’s because of politics, not because of what actually happened here,” Moriarty said.
Contributing: Jonathan Allen
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