Attorney General Pam Bondi raged against the six federal prosecutors who resigned this week after the Justice Department (DOJ) began investigating whether Becca Good, the widow of a queer woman killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent last week, had any criminal associations or ties to anti-government groups.
Joseph H. Thompson, the second in command at the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota, quit after the DOJ’s push to investigate Becca Good, The New York Times reported. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) expressed regret over Thompson’s resignation, calling him “a principled public servant who spent more than a decade achieving justice for Minnesotans.” His departure was followed by that of senior career prosecutors Harry Jacobs, Melinda Williams, and Thomas Calhoun-Lopez. None of them explained their sudden resignations.
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Bondi not only insulted the former employees but also said she actually fired them.
“Six prosecutors suddenly decided they didn’t want to support the men and women in ICE,” she ranted on Fox News, adding, “So they came, they said, ‘We want to resign, but we want to use our annual leave up until April,’ meaning they wanted the taxpayers to pay for them to go on vacation because they decided they didn’t want to support law enforcement.”
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“So, the breaking news tonight: I fired them all. They’re fired from the office.”
She then said she found out they “had been out there interviewing at liberal law firms prior to this,” as if that is some sort of egregious offense.
“One of them actually, in 2022, defended BLM [Black Lives Matter] when they burned down a pawn shop, and someone was murdered,” she said. “They want to be part of the resistance? Bring it on. They’re not going to be working for
Fox Host Sean Hannity then brought up the right-wing lie that most of the anti-ICE is coming from paid protestors. The current administration has repeatedly tried to portray Renee Good, the woman killed by an ICE agent, as a “domestic terrorist” who was part of a “sinister left-wing movement” that criminally sought to interfere with ICE’s actions. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has called the government’s characterization of Good “bulls**t.”
The departures of the prosecutors come amidst growing public unrest over Good’s killing. Harmeet Dhillon, head of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, recently refused to investigate whether ICE agent Jonathan Ross violated federal law by shooting Good in the face three times as she drove away from him last Wednesday morning.
Video of Good’s killing shows that Ross was barely brushed by her vehicle as she slowly turned to leave. He then shot her thrice, called her a “f**king b**ch,” and quickly fled the scene.
Four senior officials in the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division have also resigned in protest of the administration’s decision not to investigate whether Ross violated Good’s rights.
The FBI has said it will take full control of the investigation into the shooting, excluding state law enforcement from access to case materials, evidence, and witnesses. Critics of the administration argued that keeping blue-state law enforcement out of the investigation and confining it to an agency loyal to the president is likely to bias the investigation.
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