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Top Trump administration officials derailed an investigation into an ICE agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good last month, fearing that a probe by federal agents in Minnesota would undermine the White House’s narrative about the killing, according to a New York Times report.
Per the report, which cites anonymous sources with knowledge of the inner workings of the inquiry, just hours after Good was killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross, federal agents within the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota began preparations to investigate her killing as a potential civil rights violation. However, just after the office obtained a warrant to search Good’s car — a process that would include examining blood splatters and bullet holes — they were instructed to halt the inquiry immediately by senior Department of Justice (DOJ) officials, including FBI director Kash Patel.
Those senior officials were apparently concerned that the investigation, led by then-Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson, could contradict President Donald Trump’s official (and demonstrably false) statements on Good’s death, in which he wrongly claimed Good “ran over” the ICE agent, despite concrete video evidence demonstrating that never happened.
DOJ heads then demanded that the Minnesota U.S. attorney’s office shift its focus to different types of inquiries, including determining whether Good assaulted Ross prior to the shooting, or investigating her partner over her comments to ICE agents before the killing. No future order to investigate Good’s killing as a civil rights violation was ever given, and the DOJ has indicated it will not pursue criminal charges against Ross.
Thompson and five other prosecutors within the U.S. Attorney’s Office resigned in mid-January, due in large part to the orders to investigate other angles of Good’s death. After their departure, Attorney General Pam Bondi falsely claimed on Fox News that she had fired the officials because “they didn’t want to support the men and women at ICE” any longer.
The feds have also blocked Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from performing its duties, with the state agency alleging that the DOJ has withheld access to files and evidence from the case for its own inquiry.
Many state officials have expressed frustration with federal investigators over their refusal to cooperate.
“I expect the federal government to provide the requested information, documents and physical items to our office. The federal government has been clear that they are not conducting an investigation into Renee Good’s death. But we are,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said earlier this month.
Several polls indicate that most Americans disagree with the administration’s official stance on Good.
A Marquette University Law School poll published last week, for example, shows that only 37 percent of respondents felt Good’s killing was “justified,” as the administration alleges, with 62 percent saying it was not justified. Separate polling from CNN/SSRS last month found that only 17 percent of Americans would trust the federal government to conduct its own investigation into Good’s killing, with 62 percent saying they would trust an inquiry conducted solely by the feds to “some” degree or “not at all.”
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