The former acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joe Thompson, has resigned from the Justice Department following an internal dispute over the federal response to the fatal shooting of Renee Good.

Thompson, 47, stepped down from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota after serving as acting U.S. attorney beginning in May 2025, when he was appointed by Donald Trump. He continued in the role until Daniel Rosen assumed the post in October.

“It has been an honor and a privilege to represent the United States and this office,” Thompson wrote in a farewell email obtained by the Minnesota Star Tribune. He did not disclose the reason for his departure or outline his next steps.

Behind the scenes, however, Thompson’s resignation appears tied to growing friction inside the Justice Department over the investigation into Good’s killing last week by a federal immigration agent.

According to a New York Times report, Thompson and several other prosecutors objected to the department’s handling of the case, including its refusal to involve state authorities and a push to examine the actions of Good’s widow.

A Justice Department official pushed back on that characterization, telling Fox News Digital that the investigation is proceeding according to standard protocol. “As with any officer-involved shooting, each law enforcement agency has an internal investigation protocol, including DHS,” the official said, noting that ICE Office of Professional Responsibility is conducting its own probe alongside a separate FBI investigation.

Thompson is a prominent figure in Minnesota’s law enforcement history, having served as the lead prosecutor in the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud case, a $250 million scheme tied to the state’s Somali community. The case resulted in dozens of indictments and convictions and intensified scrutiny of fraud oversight in Minnesota.

Thompson publicly warned last year that the state had become a national outlier on fraud, telling the Star Tribune’s editorial board, “Our state is far and away the leader in fraud now and everyone sees it.”

He was also involved in several other high-profile prosecutions, including federal charges against Vance Boelter in connection with a shooting rampage that killed Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and seriously wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette.

Thompson’s exit comes amid a broader wave of resignations inside the Justice Department. Reuters reported that at least four senior attorneys in the Justice Department Civil Rights Division have stepped down in recent days after their unit was sidelined from the Good investigation. The division’s head, Harmeet Dhillon, who was appointed by Trump, informed staff last week that they would not participate in the probe, according to two people familiar with the decision.

The Trump administration has said Good was attempting to ram an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer at the time of the shooting, while critics argue she was trying to flee law enforcement.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)