HOLLOWING OUT

Prosecutors Threaten Resignation Exodus Over Handling of Protester Killings

Government attorneys say they’re being sidelined from investigating the shootings of protesters Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Federal prosecutors in Minneapolis have warned their Trump-appointed boss they may quit en masse over being barred from probing the killings of American protesters Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good.

In the space of three weeks this month, Good, an unarmed mom, and VA ICU nurse Pretti, both 37, were fatally shot by federal immigration agents during raids.

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At a tense meeting on Monday, line prosecutors in the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office confronted U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen over the Justice Department’s refusal to open full civil-rights investigations into either killing. They warned that more staff could walk if nothing changes, according to multiple sources cited by CBS News.

Federal prosecutors also told Rosen that they are being sidelined from both probes after the Trump administration handed control to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), even though officer-involved shootings are typically handled by FBI agents working alongside criminal and civil-rights prosecutors, reported the Washington Post.

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At least one prosecutor in the criminal division has already resigned since Monday’s showdown, on top of at least six who quit earlier in January—including the office’s second-in-command—after senior DOJ officials ordered them not to investigate Good’s shooting and instead explore charges against her partner.

Those departures have left the Minneapolis office operating at roughly half its usual strength of 60 to 70 lawyers. To plug the gaps, DOJ leaders have flown in prosecutors from neighboring Midwestern districts and installed lawyers from the military and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as special assistant U.S. attorneys, CBS reported. Many have little courtroom experience, the outlet said.

Career staff say the pressure is not just about what they are barred from doing, but what they are being pushed to do. Prosecutors are said to have told Rosen they are under orders to rush charges against defendants accused of assaulting federal officers during the immigration crackdown—sometimes before a full investigation—while other serious cases pile up, CBS reported.

Some prosecutors asked Rosen what would happen if they opened their own grand jury investigation into Pretti’s shooting and issued subpoenas on their own initiative. According to CBS, they did not get a clear answer.

Their frustration is sharpened by comments made by Attorney General Pam Bondi, 60, who, in a February 2025 memo, described department lawyers as “the president’s lawyers.”

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She warned that anyone who declined, for personal or political reasons, to advance “good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration” could face discipline or termination.

While DHS’s Homeland Security Investigations arm is leading the Pretti inquiry, the FBI has not opened its own civil-rights investigation and is so far only assisting in a narrow way—analyzing Pretti’s firearm at an FBI lab—despite the fact that federal use-of-force reviews usually proceed under a civil-rights statute, CBS and the Post reported.

The clash inside the U.S. Attorney’s Office comes as Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, has blasted ICE for violating at least 96 court orders in Minnesota since January 1 under Operation Metro Surge. Schiltz wrote that “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence.”

Nationwide, the strain is showing. An advocacy group called Justice Connection estimated that at least 5,500 people had left the Justice Department—through resignations, firings, or buyouts—out of roughly 10,000 attorneys across DOJ and its components, further hollowing out the ranks just as the administration ramps up immigration prosecutions.

Rosen has urged his remaining staff not to leave, telling them the district needs them, according to CBS. But prosecutors say they are questioning whether they can do their jobs without betraying their ethical obligations—fueling fears of a cascading exodus from the office at the center of Trump’s most explosive immigration crackdown.

The Justice Department declined to comment when approached by the Daily Beast. DHS did not immediately respond.

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Tom LatchemLead Global Correspondent

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