DOJ Turns to Military Lawyers as Minnesota Prosecutors Quit (1)

The Justice Department is attempting to offset a spike in Minnesota prosecutor resignations by deploying reinforcements from the military, other US attorney offices, and its health care fraud unit, according to a senior DOJ official.

An unspecified number of military lawyers have agreed to take temporary assignments as special assistant US attorneys in the Minneapolis district, while US attorneys in Detroit and Los Angeles have offered to loan prosecutors in response to the Minnesota attrition, added the official, speaking anonymously about internal personnel developments.

The resignations of the six prosecutors, accounting for nearly 10% of the office’s line attorneys, came amid public backlash about DOJ’s decision not to investigate an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who killed a woman last week.

White-collar health care fraud specialists from the Criminal Division at DOJ headquarters are also supporting the effort, as Donald Trump’s administration seeks to surge investigations of public benefits schemes in Minnesota, despite the office losing its most seasoned experts on the complex daycare center cases.

The mix of short- and longer-term prosecutors temporarily stationed in Minnesota will focus on either federal program fraud or cases tied to Minneapolis street protests, such as assaults on officers, the DOJ official said.

“The Department of Justice is laser focused on rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse, and has already charged dozens of defendants from Minnesota who’ve defrauded the American people,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement. “These efforts will continue until all fraudsters, including refugees who are laundering American taxpayer dollars, are brought to justice.”

Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy US military forces to Minnesota to quell the protests.

Recruiting prosecutors from the military branches’ Judge Advocate General’s Corps as special assistant US attorneys has become a recurring model for the department as it’s sought to surge law enforcement resources in metropolitan areas, including Washington and Memphis.

The particular case assignments for the new batch of prosecutors will be closely watched after multiple media outlets reported that the Minnesota prosecutors resigned in protest of being pressured to investigate the widow of Renée Nicole Good, the woman fatally shot by the ICE officer.

Attorney General Pam Bondi previewed the Minnesota reinforcements during an interview Wednesday with Sean Hannity on Fox News.

“Good riddance to the six who are gone,” said Bondi, who said she fired those who resigned before they could exhaust their annual leave. “Our great other prosecutors from around the country are coming in to protect the men and women of ICE.”

The exits earlier this week of senior Minnesota prosecutors spurred questions as to how DOJ would execute on the administration’s desire to scale up its investigations of public benefit fraud. Two of those who resigned, Joseph Thompson and Harry Jacobs, had the office’s greatest level of institutional knowledge of the massive Feeding Our Future scandal involving federally funded nutrition programs during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The DOJ official declined to offer an expected number of prosecutors who’d head to Minnesota, but said DOJ anticipates the US attorney’s office will break even on the six losses by later in the day Thursday. The official added that DOJ continues to try reaching more agreements with military lawyers and prosecutors from other US attorney offices.

DOJ media representatives didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.