{"id":404846,"date":"2026-01-13T16:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/404846\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T16:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T16:44:10","slug":"doj-attorneys-resign-over-decision-not-to-investigate-agent-in-minneapolis-ice-shooting-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/404846\/","title":{"rendered":"DoJ attorneys resign over decision not to investigate agent in Minneapolis ICE shooting | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several attorneys in the US justice department\u2019s civil rights division have reportedly resigned in protest at a decision not to investigate the fatal shooting of an unarmed US citizen by a federal immigration agent in Minneapolis<\/a> \u2013 while the FBI presses ahead with an inquiry into the victim.<\/p>\n

At least four leaders of the division\u2019s criminal investigations section have stepped down, according to MS Now<\/a>, citing three people it said were briefed about the departures.<\/p>\n

It follows a decision by Harmeet Dhillon, the Trump administration<\/a>-aligned assistant attorney general for civil rights, not to investigate<\/a> the 7 January killing of Renee Nicole Good by Jonathan Ross, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)<\/a> agent, as would be usual in the case of a shooting by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

A justice department spokesperson confirmed the resignations in a statement to the Guardian but denied they were related to the Minneapolis<\/a> shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we typically don\u2019t comment on personnel matters, we can confirm that the criminal section leadership gave notice to depart the civil rights division and requested to participate in the Department of Justice\u2019s early retirement program well before the events in Minnesota,\u201d the statement said. \u201cAny suggestion to the contrary is false.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, the FBI \u2013 which seized total control of the investigation after freezing out local officials<\/a> \u2013 is looking into Good\u2019s \u201cpossible connections to activist groups\u201d, according to the New York Times<\/a>. A succession of Trump administration officials, including the president himself, have portrayed Good, without presenting evidence, as a \u201cdomestic terrorist\u201d or \u201cpaid agitator\u201d \u2013 while video of her confrontation with Ross appears to show her trying to steer her vehicle away from him when she was shot three times in the face.<\/p>\n

Multiple career prosecutors in Dhillon\u2019s office offered to lead an inquiry into the shooting but were told not to do so, CBS News reported<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n

The resignations are the latest in a flow of departures from the civil rights division since Donald Trump began his second term a year earlier. In May, the Guardian reported<\/a> that more than 250 attorneys had left, been reassigned, or accepted a deferred resignation offer since January, a roughly 70% reduction.<\/p>\n

Dhillon, a former Republican official in California, and an election denier<\/a> who promoted the \u201cbig lie\u201d that Trump\u2019s 2020 election defeat was fraudulent, was confirmed by the Senate in April. She worked quickly to realign the division\u2019s priorities<\/a> away from its longstanding work tackling discrimination and protecting the rights of marginalized groups \u2013 and towards Trump\u2019s political goals including exposing voter fraud, which is rare, and focusing on anti-transgender issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s an overstatement to see this as the end of the division as we\u2019ve known it,\u201d a civil rights division attorney told the Guardian at the time.<\/p>\n

Subsequently, in September, the online news outlet Notus reported that only two lawyers remained<\/a> out of 36 at the justice department\u2019s public integrity unit assigned to investigations of corrupt politicians and law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestigating officials to determine if they broke the law, defied policy, failed to de-escalate, and resorted to deadly force without basis is one of the civil rights division\u2019s most solemn duties,\u201d Kristen Clarke, who led the division in the Biden administration, told MS Now.<\/p>\n

\u201cProsecutors of the civil rights division have, for decades, been the nation\u2019s leading experts in this work.\u201d<\/p>\n

The FBI<\/a> investigation into Good\u2019s alleged links to activist groups protesting ICE activities in Minneapolis and elsewhere, meanwhile, aligns with White House messaging seeking to blame the victim for her death and absolve the ICE agent of responsibility.<\/p>\n

In the days since Good\u2019s killing, numerous Trump administration<\/a> officials, including Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary, have repeatedly alleged without evidence that she was engaging in domestic terrorism \u2013 and that Ross was forced to shoot to save his own life and the lives of others. Good, Noem said, had been \u201cstalking\u201d officers.<\/p>\n

JD Vance, the vice-president, repeated the claims in an angry rant<\/a> during a White House press briefing on Thursday, alleging Good was part of a \u201cbroader leftwing network\u201d working tirelessly and using \u201cdomestic terror techniques\u201d to stop the Trump administration from enforcing immigration laws. He offered no evidence to back up his claim.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, Trump published a post on his Truth Social platform asking: \u201cDo the people of Minnesota really want to live in a community where there are thousands of \u2026 deadly criminals too dangerous to even mention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Family members say Good, a mother of three children<\/a>, had just dropped her six-year-old son off at school. And video shows her waving ICE vehicles past her car despite the insistence of Vance and others that she was deliberately blocking traffic and \u201cimpeding\u201d their work.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is classic terrorism,\u201d Vance said.<\/p>\n

Officials in Minneapolis have contradicted the administration\u2019s assertions and condemned its rush to judgment before an investigation had taken place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re calling the victim a domestic terrorist. They\u2019re calling the actions of the agent involved as some form of defensive posture. We know that they\u2019ve already determined much of the investigation,\u201d the city\u2019s mayor, Jacob Frey, said in a press conference<\/a> on Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several attorneys in the US justice department\u2019s civil rights division have reportedly resigned in protest at a decision…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-404846","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}