Joe Thompson, the career U.S. Justice Department attorney best known for prosecuting social services fraud in Minnesota, has resigned along with other experienced attorneys at the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The move comes after top Justice Department officials pushed the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office to investigate the widow of Renee Macklin Good, the person shot and killed last week by ICE agent Jonathan Ross, MPR News has learned.
Thompson, 47, also objected to the DOJ’s decision to exclude the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from the investigation into the shooting and the department’s reluctance to investigate Ross, according to a person familiar with Thompson’s decision.
Veteran assistant U.S. attorneys Melinda Williams, Harry Jacobs, and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez also resigned. The prosecutors were also concerned that immigration enforcement is diverting resources away from prosecuting major fraud cases in the state.
Williams oversees the office’s criminal division. She helped to secure the sex trafficking conviction of former Minnesota Republican Party operative Tony Lazzaro and also prosecuted drug dealer Aaron Broussard, whom a jury found guilty in the fentanyl overdose deaths of 11 people.
Thompson had served as acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota and then first assistant U.S. attorney, taking on a higher profile the past few months as he announced charges against people allegedly stealing from federally funded programs in Minnesota.
Thompson’s office said he would not be commenting Tuesday on his resignation.
Newly appointed U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Dan Rosen did not respond to a request for comment on the resignations.
Justice Department officials in Washington have turned aside questions about whether Ross might face any charges in the shooting. “There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” of the shooting, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
On social media, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey lauded Thompson and the other prosecutors who resigned as heroes.
“The people pushing to prosecute Renee’s widow are monsters,” he added. “In their pursuit of cruelty, the administration also just set back the work of fighting fraud by pushing out the prosecutors who were working on those cases.”
Minnesota Democratic U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar also praised Thompson’s work as a fraud prosecutor, calling his resignation “a loss for our state and for public safety.”
In an interview with MPR News, Klobuchar said the DOJ has politicized the investigation.
“The first way they did it was cutting out the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. That was such a bad sign that there was more bad to come, because our Minnesota Bureau has seasoned professionals. They’ve always worked together, and they cut them out.”
In a social media post, Gov. Tim Walz said, “Joe is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state. It’s also the latest sign Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the justice department, replacing them with his sycophants.”
In addition to Thompson, several other experienced Minnesota prosecutors resigned.