The Cracks Are Showing: Trump Contends with Internal Revolt

Resignations inside the Justice Department are becoming a form of protest

Six Federal Prosecutors have resigned in the wake of the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minnesota following the Trump Administration’s demand for an investigation into Good’s widow for activities that happen to be well within her First Amendment Rights.

Prosecutors also objected to the DOJ’s blocking Minnesota state officials from investigating the shooter.

That alone is extraordinary.

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Who resigned

Among those who walked:

• Joseph H. Thompson, second in command at the US attorney’s office, who was overseeing a sprawling fraud investigation that has upended Minnesota’s political world

• Harry Jacobs, Mr. Thompson’s deputy overseeing the fraud investigation since 2022

• Melinda Williams

• Thomas Calhoun-Lopez, chief of the violent and major crimes unit.

Federal prosecutors do not resign lightly. When they do, it’s a signal something inside the system has broken.

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Reading between the lines

These resignations are telling, especially Thompson and Jacobs.

The fraud investigation they were overseeing was Trump’s principal reason for the immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

Minneapolis police chief Brian O’Hara put it plainly:

“When you lose the leader responsible for making the fraud cases, it tells you this isn’t really about prosecuting fraud.”

Quiet part, loud and clear.

Taken together, this is no longer just about Minnesota. It’s about how prosecutorial power is being abused across the board. The DOJ hasn’t just put these Federal prosecutors in an impossible position by asking them to violate the very principles of justice they swore to protect. The DOJ has now firmly been weaponized against the American people.

The message to protestors is unmistakeable:

Shut the hell up.

Do not oppose what we’re trying to do. If you speak up, if you use a whistle, if you draw any attention to the illegal conduct going on in your streets,

You will be next.

And if it’s not with a shot in the face, it’s going to be a baseless criminal investigation with absolutely no evidence indicating you’ve committed any crime.

The intended effect is obvious: Lie down, don’t resist, feel defeated, be afraid. And under no circumstances should you exercise your constitutional rights.

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There’s a pattern

The Minnesota resignations don’t just signal outrage, they’re the next in a wave of career attorneys pushing back.

Federal prosecutors have been not-so quietly resigning across the country in the face of directives from the administration that have been completely antithetical to the rule of law they’ve devoted their career to enforcing.

• At least four Washington, DC prosecutors walked after Harmeet Dhillon, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, announced there would be no investigation into the shooter.

• Last year, ten federal prosecutors resigned in protest against the Justice Department’s pressure to drop charges against former New York City mayor Eric Adams.

• One of them, Danielle Sassoon is a conservative who at one point waxed poetic about the merits of Antonin Scalia. Not exactly antifa.

• Another, Hagan Scotten was blistering in his resignation letter:

Any federal prosecutor would know that our laws and traditions do not allow using the prosecutorial power to influence other citizens, much less elected officials. If no lawyer within earshot of the President is willing to give him that advice, then I expect you will eventually find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion.

But it was never going to be me.

That’s not just rhetoric, that’s a federal prosecutor putting it in writing.

• In Los Angeles alone, over 50 attorneys have resigned in the last year.

• Denise Cheung, a DC prosecutor, resigned last year after being asked to open a criminal investigation into a government contractor who had gotten a Biden-era grant for environmental projects.

Nothing splashy. Nothing public. Just another quiet refusal to be complicit.

These aren’t one-offs. The trend is documented. The pattern is clear.

This site is a catalog of resignation letters from just a fraction of the career prosecutors who made the painful decision to leave their posts in protest of blatantly illegal demands from the Trump administration.

These people protected Americans’ rights in cases involving antitrust law, cybercrime, immigration, January 6 prosecutions, the environment and natural resources, civil rights, violence against women, and education.

I worry that when good prosecutors leave, those posts will be filled with bad prosecutors. But that’s the risk.

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What it means

I have mixed feelings when prosecutors resign in protest. On one hand it draws attention to the injustice of the DOJ, and it shows that good people aren’t willing to do bad things.

But in a relentless news cycle, that attention fizzles in a day. And while people move on to the next atrocity, those DOJ vacancies get quietly filled by bad people content to do Trump’s bidding. Even the most incompetent prosecutors - Lindsey Halligan, I’m looking at you - can still do a lot of damage.

But —

This instance is different. You’ve got six prosecutors who want to investigate what happened in Minneapolis, and they’re free agents. There is a state agency that wants to do the exact same thing.

I hope these prosecutors go straight to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension or the Minneapolis PD, or some agency that isn’t led by Harmeet Dillon or some other sycophantic hack, whose real job title is “court jester to the Godking.”

These six prosecutors have the experience to do the right thing, and the desire. I hope that doesn’t get wasted.