Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is hemorrhaging prosecutors in Minnesota as more attorneys have decided to leave their jobs rather than defend the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement tactics.
Eight veteran prosecutors have either left or announced they are leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, The Minnesota Star Tribune reported, bringing the total to 14 outgoing prosecutors after six others quit in mid-January.
That’s more than the office typically loses in a year, let alone a month, according to the Star Tribune. Key staff members, including a victim-witness coordinator and an evidence technician, also recently left.
The mass exit was triggered in part by the DOJ’s refusal to open a civil rights investigation into the killings of U.S. citizens Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, who were fatally shot by immigration agents in January.
The departing attorneys had also voiced their concerns to U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen about the Trump administration’s efforts to prevent state and local investigators from probing the killings as potential homicides, and about orders to rush through charges against defendants accused of assaulting federal officers without conducting a full investigation.
The attorneys also thought they should consider whether the agents’ conduct contributed to the encounters.
“This was the ultimate example of selective prosecution,” a retiring attorney told the Star Tribune.
Fewer than 20 attorneys are staffing Minnesota’s entire criminal division, compared to at least 50 attorneys working on criminal cases in prior years, according to the Star Tribune.
The DOJ has had to transfer attorneys in from other states, many of whom are less experienced than the attorneys who left.
That means prosecutors will likely be forced to focus on easier cases that can be handled by less experienced lawyers, former prosecutors said.
In the meantime, the office has been overwhelmed by hundreds of wrongful detention cases filed by immigrants who are being held in ICE custody. The Trump administration is enforcing a mandatory detention policy, despite judges striking down the rule in more than 1,600 cases, Politico reported last month.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the DOJ for comment.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity last month, Bondi fumed at the first group of federal prosecutors who chose to quit rather than open a criminal investigation into Good’s widow, Becca, after her 37-year-old’s wife was killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
“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.
“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.”
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