I was wondering if we might see a push from the Stephen Miller faction in the Trump administration to take the Minneapolis ICE shooting one step further and criminally charge Renee Nicole Good’s wife for inciting the shooting. That would be the classic Miller move, and one that goes a step further than the typical Trump DOJ pattern of lawfare against personal and policy enemies of the president. There’s more than a fig leaf of justification for such charges, as the wife seems to have gotten Good involved in ICE Watch as well as yelling “Drive, baby, drive” just before Good made the fatal decision to hit the accelerator; but it would nonetheless be a terrible idea to charge her unless there is some very significant new evidence we haven’t seen yet. Most prosecutors would classify her as having suffered enough for bad judgment.
Now, here we are. Ernesto Londoño of the New York Times reports:
Six federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned on Tuesday over the Justice Department’s push to investigate the widow of a woman killed by an ICE agent and the department’s reluctance to investigate the shooter, according to people with knowledge of their decision. Joseph H. Thompson, who was second in command at the U.S. attorney’s office and oversaw a sprawling fraud investigation that has roiled Minnesota’s political landscape, was among those who quit on Tuesday, according to three people with knowledge of the decision.
Mr. Thompson’s resignation came after senior Justice Department officials pressed for a criminal investigation into the actions of the widow of Renee Nicole Good, the Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent on Wednesday. Mr. Thompson, 47, a career prosecutor, objected to that approach, as well as to the Justice Department’s refusal to include state officials in investigating whether the shooting itself was lawful, the people familiar with his decision said.
Also today, the “Department of Homeland Security revoked Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for thousands of Somalis living in the United States, including the hundreds currently residing in Minnesota, as the Trump administration continues its efforts to crack down on widespread welfare fraud and immigration violations in the state.”
Talk about bad timing. Thompson has been the face of the Somali fraud probes. It was Thompson who put the multibillion-dollar price tags on those frauds, and the administration has leaned hard on his credibility as it was attacked by Minnesota Democrats. The exact point at which Trump is revoking TPS for Somalia seems like a very bad moment to alienate Thompson to the point where he quits his job, probably requiring him to be replaced by someone more easily branded as a Trump flunky.