Six US prosecutors resign in Minnesota as crackdown builds
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Mr Joe Thompson, Minnesota's acting US attorney earlier in Mr Donald Trump's term, is among the six prosecutors who resigned on Jan 13.
PHOTO: BEN BREWER/NYTIMES
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MINNESOTA – Six Minnesota federal prosecutors resigned on Jan 13, including two top investigators of the daycare scandal animating US President Donald Trump’s base, departures that may complicate the Justice Department’s crackdown on alleged public benefits fraud.
Those departing include Mr Joe Thompson, Minnesota’s acting US attorney earlier in Mr Trump’s term who was leading the office’s escalating response to federal programme schemes, and Mr Harry Jacobs, another prosecutor who coordinated cases involving improper child nutrition programme payments, said three people familiar with the situation.
One of the individuals familiar with the resignations, who all spoke anonymously about sensitive personnel matters, said that Mr Thompson and Mr Jacobs were the two prosecutors remaining in the office with the most institutional knowledge of the massive Feeding Our Future scandal involving federally funded nutrition programmes during the Covid-19 pandemic.
It remains unclear who will take over the assignment, as Trump officials have sought to expand its reach.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz condemned the development as “the latest sign that President Trump is pushing nonpartisan career professionals out of the Department of Justice and replacing them with his sycophants”.
Mr Walz’s statement referred to resignations of “at least six prosecutors”.
The New York Times reported earlier that their exits stemmed from pressure on the prosecutors to investigate the widow of Ms Renee Nicole Good, a woman killed on Jan 7
A representative for the Minnesota US attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The resignations come amid broader upheaval in the Justice Department, with at least five senior lawyers in the Civil Rights Division on Jan 12 announcing their planned departures, according to people familiar with the situation.
Those include the chief of the division’s criminal section, which worked closely with federal prosecutors in Minnesota after the murder of Mr George Floyd, an unarmed Black man, in 2020.
Attorney-General Pam Bondi announced last week that she would be sending prosecutors from other parts of the US to support the Minneapolis-based district in efforts to root out fraud.
The White House has since announced the creation of a new DOJ fraud division to combat government programme misconduct in Minnesota and elsewhere.
The sudden departures among Minnesota prosecutors follow a pattern in other liberal-leaning districts where DOJ has surged immigration enforcement resources, leading to protests and a spike in charges for impeding or assaulting officers.
US attorney’s offices in Los Angeles, Washington and Chicago have all experienced a mass exodus of experienced prosecutors following White House pressure to prosecute protesters – including in cases where grand juries took the rare step of rejecting indictments.
Mr Thompson served as acting US attorney from May through October in 2025, before becoming the office’s top deputy to Minnesota’s Trump-appointed US attorney Daniel Rosen. BLOOMBERG
