Attorney General Pam Bondi was so furious with six federal prosecutors who announced they would resign rather than prosecute the widow of a Minnesota woman killed by an ICE agent that she fired them before they had a chance to give their notice.
The attorney general was visibly angry during an interview Thursday with Fox News host Sean Hannity in which she described how the prosecutors told her after the killing of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good that they wanted to resign and use their annual leave through April.
“What happened in Minnesota? We had six prosecutors who suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women of ICE!” she said, her voice rising as she emphasized certain words to show her disdain.
“They wanted the taxpayers to pay for them to go on vacation because they decided they didn’t want to support law enforcement,” she said. “So, the breaking news tonight? I fired them all! They are FIRED from the office.”
The attorneys had objected to opening a criminal investigation into Good’s widow, Becca Good, instead of the agent who fatally shot Good while she was trying to drive away from the scene of a protest, The New York Times reported.
They also opposed the Justice Department’s refusal to include Minnesota state officials in the investigation into whether the shooting itself was lawful, which is instead being probed by the FBI.
Reached by the Daily Beast, the DOJ declined to comment.
President Donald Trump and other senior officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have desperately sought to portray Good as a “domestic terrorist” who attempted to run over the shooter, 43-year-old ICE agent Jonathan Ross, with her vehicle.
Video from the scene, however, suggests her tires were pointed in the opposite direction.
The Trump administration has nevertheless tried to prevent the state of Minnesota, which has jurisdiction over potential murder cases, from investigating Good’s killing, and has refused to open a civil rights investigation into whether Ross used excessive force, leading to accusations of a cover-up.
The Minnesota prosecutors’ resignations-slash-firings come just days after the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division was also hit by an exodus in response to Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon’s refusal to investigate the killing.
At least four leaders with the criminal section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, which usually investigates fatal shootings by law enforcement officers and specializes in determining whether deadly force was justified, signaled they would leave as a result.
A DOJ official confirmed in a statement to the Daily Beast that members of the criminal section’s leadership had given notice and asked to participate in the DOJ’s early retirement program but said the move was made “well before the events in Minnesota.”
However, the decision not to investigate Good’s death accelerated their departures, according to the Times.
Speaking to Hannity, Bondi chalked up the Minnesota resignations to federal prosecutors—who aren’t exactly known for being rebellious—joining the “deep state” and being members of the “Resistance.”
“That’s what we’re facing around the country: the deep state in many of these offices,” she said. “They want to be part of the Resistance? Yeah, bring it on. They’re not going to be working for Donald Trump and the Department of Justice any longer.”
Federal prosecutors, of course, represent “the people” in court and take an oath to the Constitution, not Trump.
