What a wave of resignations means for Minnesota’s highest-profile federal cases
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The Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office is in turmoil after several experienced federal prosecutors quit Tuesday amid pressure from Justice Department leaders to investigate Becca Good for ties to activist groups. She’s the widow of Renee Macklin Good — the 37-year-old Minneapolis woman killed by an ICE agent last week. The sudden departures leave the future of some high-profile prosecutions in question.
The lawyers who left the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office this week have among them more than a century of prosecutorial experience. Tom Calhoun-Lopez helped secure murder and racketeering convictions of Minneapolis gang members in marathon back-to-back trials last year. Two got life sentences.
Also out the door is Melinda Williams, who oversaw the criminal division. Joe Thompson joined her in leaving. Thompson served as temporary acting U.S. Attorney last year. In July, he was the public face of the prosecution of alleged assassin Vance Boelter.
Thompson played another critical role in the office. He was lead prosecutor in the Feeding Our Future case, where 58 people were convicted in a scheme to steal $300 million from government child nutrition programs. Twenty more defendants are awaiting trial. That case put investigators on the scent of Medicaid fraud. Thompson made waves last month when he estimated the total at $9 billion.
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He and the others who quit aren’t speaking publicly about their decisions. Minnesota’s newly appointed U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“There’s no substitute for the human capital in that office,” said University of St. Thomas law professor Mark Osler.
Osler, once a federal prosecutor himself, said it won’t be easy for the remaining assistant U.S. attorneys to press ahead with the fraud cases.
“We’re losing not just knowledge, the kind of thing that’s on a transcript, but also a trained prosecutor’s impression of how strong a particular witness is for example, what their relationships are with others, the things that are in Joe Thompson’s head that no one else knows,” said Osler.
Laurie Levenson, who now teaches at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, also has experience as a federal prosecutor. Levenson said for decades, U.S. attorney’s offices had their pick of top law school graduates despite the relatively low pay.
“People make a big financial sacrifice to do this job,” said Levenson. “But they do so because they’re really committed to the job and they believe in what they do and they believe it’s an opportunity to be their best lawyer.”
Levenson worked for U.S. Attorneys appointed by both Republican and Democratic presidents and told MPR News she never took a case that she didn’t believe in. But Levenson said Justice Department officials in the second Trump Administration are pushing prosecutors to settle political scores.
She said the pressure to investigate Becca Good, the widow of Renee Macklin Good — but not the ICE agent who shot her — is just one recent example.
“I don’t think you should point to these prosecutors and say they’re abandoning their duty,” said Levenson. “They’ve done a lot of good work. And people cannot be forced to stay in an environment where they don’t feel they can appropriately and ethically do their job.”
On Tuesday, MPR News asked the Justice Department about the mass resignations at the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office and the push to investigate Becca Good for ties to activist groups. In a short statement, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche addressed only the shooting itself saying, “There is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.”
Prior to the recent resignations, the office was already down to just 25 prosecutors — half of its peak strength before budget cuts. Levenson says given low morale and the current political environment, new U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen may have a hard time hiring new lawyers, particularly those skilled at handling complex, high-profile cases.
Correction (Jan. 15, 2026): An earlier version of this story incorrectly spelled Mark Osler's name. The story has been updated.
