Aides to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche directed the U.S. Attorney’s office and FBI agents based in Minnesota to shut down a civil rights investigation into an officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Good and instead alter it to probe Good for possible criminal liability, according to three people briefed on the discussions.
After Good was killed on Jan. 7, FBI agents drafted a search warrant to obtain her car to reconstruct the path of bullets that an ICE officer shot into the vehicle. But they were instructed to redraft their warrant and change the subject of the investigation from a civil rights probe to an investigation into a suspected assault on an officer, the people said. A federal magistrate judge rejected that warrant, noting that Good was already dead and could not be considered a suspect for a warrant.
It was widely reported that the Justice Department chose not to investigate the ICE officer who shot and killed Good, but the details about how top Justice officials directed the altering of the investigation and search warrant — and how it was rejected as weak by a federal judge — have not been previously reported.
It’s extremely rare for judges to reject federal prosecutors’ requests for search warrants, as the standard for evidence needed to grant one is low. Prosecutors and investigators need to only show probable cause that they will find evidence of a crime in the location they wish to search.
Meanwhile, Tracee Mergen, an FBI supervisor in the Minneapolis field office who oversees fraud and public corruption cases, resigned in frustration over the handling by Justice Department leadership of the Good shooting investigation and the pivot of the original search warrant subject, according to two of the sources. Mergen is said to be frustrated as well with the Trump administration’s decision to treat protesters in Minnesota as possible domestic terrorists and conduct mass arrests of people peaceably protesting, according to two people familiar with her decision. The New York Times reported her departure earlier Friday evening.
FBI spokesman Ben Williamson told MS NOW, “The FBI doesn’t comment on personnel matters. The facts on the ground do not support a civil rights investigation. FBI continues to investigate the incident as well as the violent criminal actors and those perpetrating illegal activity.”
An FBI spokesperson for the Minneapolis office declined to comment on Mergen or her status.
The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.
The Justice Department’s handling of an ICE officer who shot and killed the Minnesota mother has detonated in a series of damaging waves in the state, and particularly for federal law enforcement. Six prosecutors in the U.S. attorney’s office there resigned in frustration over the decision to investigate Good and her partner, rather than the shooting, MS NOW has reported. More resignations are expected in coming days, sources familiar with their plans have said.
The acting U.S. attorney who Trump chose for the office, Dan Rosen, has never worked as a prosecutor and has little credibility with the lawyers in the office, according to two former prosecutors who have spoken confidentially with their colleagues. In the wake of the No. 2 career prosecutor in the office resigning, along with several senior staff, Rosen has struggled to persuade anyone in the office to serve as his top assistant, those two former prosecutors said.
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Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.
Ken Dilanian is the justice and intelligence correspondent for MS NOW.
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