Former federal prosecutors said that they were shocked by the abrupt resignations of several individuals in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota on Tuesday, a move two sources familiar with the matter said stemmed from pressure to investigate the widow of Renee Good, who was shot and killed by an ICE officer last week. 

Doug Kelley, a former assistant U.S. attorney for seven years in Minnesota, said he had not spoken directly with any of the six career prosecutors who stepped down from their posts, but called the resignations the "darkest day" for the rule of law that he had seen in his five decades practicing criminal law. 

"When you have six people who are of good will and who have been dedicated public servants and have spent their lives enforcing the law as objectively as possible — if they feel the need to resign because of orders they have gotten that will violate their conscience, to me, that is a great statement on their part that this is not tolerable by them," Kelley told WCCO News. 

He said the departures do "tremendous harm" to the tradition that the U.S. Attorney's Office maintains its independence. The investigation into Good's death — which is led solely by the FBI after state investigators said they were blocked from accessing evidence — now looks "tainted," he added, and will further erode the public's trust in the outcome. 

How will the departures impact other investigations, like fraud?

Among those who resigned on Tuesday is Joe Thompson, the first assistant U.S. attorney. He notably took the lead on dozens of fraud cases that are getting national attention, explaining to the public the nature of the charges and the scope of the investigation. He recently said the total amount of fraud could reach $9 billion. 

Thompson could not be reached for comment.

Anders Folk — who previously held a role similar to Thompson and at one time was the acting U.S. attorney before Andy Luger was appointed to the position in 2022 — told WCCO News that he had never seen anything like what happened Tuesday with that many career prosecutors—who are not political appointees—resigning at once. 

He called the moves stunning and concerning. 

Filling those vacancies and rebuilding what's already a lean office won't happen overnight, he said. He also believes it will impact current investigations and prosecutions underway, like probes into widespread fraud in state welfare programs and the killing of former House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, last summer. 

"This is not a positive development for bringing people to justice in these fraud cases, and it's not a positive development for these other cases that you mentioned — getting justice in the murder of Melissa Hortman," Folk said in an interview. "This is a material number of prosecutors to lose all at one time, and there's no way that this won't impact the office, both in terms of morale, certainly, but just in terms of having people there to get the work done."

Folk did not comment or speculate on the reasons that drove the prosecutors to leave their jobs, but he said, from his experience working in the office, it was "drilled into his head" that he was to do his work in an apolitical way.