Prosecutors resigning from U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson describes a sprawling fraud investigation involving state-run programs in Minnesota at a news conference Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, in Minneapolis.
(AP Photo/Giovanna Dell'Orto)
ST PAUL, Min. – Minnesota Governor Tim Walz says at least six prosecutors, including former acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson, have resigned from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota.
Governor Walz said in a released statement, “Joe Thompson is a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans. This is a huge loss for our state… This is the latest sign that President Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the Department of Justice and replacing them with his sycophants.”
The New York Times is reporting they resigned after they were pushed to investigate the widow of Renee Nicole Good.
Good was shot and killed by ICE in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026.
The Minnesota Star Tribune says they obtained an e-mail from Thompson saying he was resigning, but the e-mail did not say why he was resigning.
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They are the latest in an exodus of career Justice Department attorneys who have resigned or been forced out over concerns over political pressure or shifting priorities under the Trump administration. Hundreds of Justice Department lawyers have been fired or have left voluntarily over the last year.
Minnesota Democratic lawmakers criticized the departures, with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling the resignations “a loss for our state and for public safety” and warning that prosecutions should not be driven by politics.
The resignations of the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division’s criminal section, including its chief, were announced to staff on Monday. The Justice Department on Tuesday said those prosecutors had requested to participate in an early retirement program “well before the events in Minnesota,” and added that “any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
-The Associated Press contributed to this report
