6 Prosecutors Refused The Trump Administration’s Demands To Assassinate Renee Nicole Good A 2nd Time

Think of the spine in the human body as a call center. It not only keeps the body upright but also helps you move, all while protecting the important transmissions between the brain and the body. And more importantly, it keeps everything protected. Think of it as a main support structure that keeps everything together. 

It’s the backbone. 

Without a spine, nothing functions. Which is why it’s important, when dealing with a lawless administration that operates more like a mafia family than elected and appointed officials, that people know exactly where their backbone is, so they can stand on their own business.

On Jan. 7, 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, a Minneapolis mother and legal observer, was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during their occupation of the Twin Cities. Good’s death — captured on video and widely circulated — sparked outrage because the footage clearly shows her driving away from the federal agent at the time she was shot. 

Under ordinary circumstances (read as every administration pre-Trump), when an officer or federal agent’s shooting results in the death of a civilian, it triggers a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. That’s what happened, for example, in the 2020 Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd; the DOJ opened a federal civil rights investigation alongside state and local probes.

But since we are dealing with the Trump Crime Family, the White House hitman, more commonly referred to as the Department of Justice, has refused to open a civil rights investigation into whether the use of deadly force was justified. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche publicly stated that the department saw “no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation” into the shooting.

Instead of investigating Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who pulled the trigger, the DOJ pivoted to investigating the woman who was killed. Or more accurately, the people around her. Her politics. Her associations. Her widow. Anything that could be stitched together into a narrative that made state violence feel reasonable after the fact.

The Justice Department wasn’t asking, “Did we break the law?” It was asking, “How do we make this look less bad?”

Six prosecutors refused to help answer that second question.

That’s right. Six prosecutors stood tall and submitted their resignations. Not quietly. Not with a vague LinkedIn post about “new opportunities.” They walked away from prestige, power, and federal paychecks because the Justice Department asked them to participate in something they knew was wrong: using the machinery of the federal government to dig up dirt on Renee Good. 

Let’s sit with that for a second.

And this is why it’s important to know where the backbone is located. The backbone gets tested more than any bone in your body. Serving under this administration, in any capacity, means that at some point, a person is going to have to look in the mirror and find their spine. 

The Justice Department isn’t looking to get to the bottom of this shooting; they’re looking to launder the narrative. And it’s important to note that career federal prosecutors don’t quit like this. These aren’t political appointees. They have spent years working inside a system that rewards obedience, patience, and silence. They know how much easier it would’ve been to stay quiet and wait it out.

And they left.

That’s how you know something is rotten. These prosecutors have survived administrations that don’t align with their political beliefs before, and this was their breaking point. Because they weren’t being asked to pursue justice, they were being asked to justify a killing, and that was a bridge too far for anyone willing to stand up for what they know is right. There is a line for those whose spine is firmly intact, and these six prosecutors refused to blur it. 

The flux capacitor stopped working a long time ago, and somehow we all got stuck in a universe in which the DOJ is openly working to cover up a federal shooting, and six prosecutors quit because they refused to be a part of a posthumous smear operation. 

The DOJ used to be neutral, but neutrality is a choice. The grossly inept Attorney General Pam Bondi pledged allegiance to the Trump Crime Family long ago, so expecting her to serve the interests of the office is akin to believing that Gargamel will one day want to see the Smurfs prosper. This isn’t about justice; this is about eliminating bad press for a White House that serves the news cycle more than the people. Good’s death is nothing more to them than bad optics, and the proof is the request to find the reason for the killing after Good has been killed. 

Six prosecutors were being asked to not only turn a blind eye to a senseless killing, but to participate in a second murder of Good’s legacy. Because once the government decides that your politics, your activism, or your associations can be used to retroactively excuse your killing, the law stops protecting people and starts sorting them.

Having a spine isn’t about anonymous leaks. It isn’t carefully crafted dissent buried in a tersely worded email. It isn’t agreeing to do the work you know you can’t live with. A backbone is choosing unemployment over obedience. A backbone is a leaving party that’s gotten out of hand, even when you don’t have a ride home. A backbone is looking at the bag, then walking away because you wouldn’t be able to look at yourself in the mirror. 

Six prosecutors didn’t stop the machine. They didn’t save the institution. But they exposed it.

Six prosecutors didn’t quit because the work got hard. They quit because it got dirty. And if that makes them expendable, it tells you exactly how disposable justice has become inside a spineless Department of Justice.

SEE ALSO:

Trump Administration Lies In Defense Of ICE Killing Renee Nicole Good

ICE Is The Real Criminal Threat, Not Undocumented Immigrants