FBI supervisor resigns after trying to investigate agent who shot Renee Good | Minnesota ICE shooting
A manager at the FBI’s Minneapolis field office who failed in his attempt to investigate the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in the city on January 7 has resigned, according to multiple reports.
News of Agent Tracee Mergen’s resignation emerged shortly before federal agents fatally shot Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. Pretti and Good were both 37-year-old U.S. citizens.
Mergen resigned after pressure from the Washington, D.C., office to drop the investigation into ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who shot and killed Good because of videos showing him trying to flee the confrontation. New York Times And NBC News.
These sources cited sources. The FBI did not comment on Mergen’s resignation, saying it does not comment on personnel matters.
Saturday’s killing sparked a mounting public outcry that has once again plunged Minneapolis into a complicated three-way situation between demonstrators who want federal agents, state and local law enforcement and the Trump administration to be held responsible for Pretti’s killing.
Mergen’s decision to leave the office, meanwhile, came after Trump said his justice department saw no reason to launch a civil rights investigation into Good’s killing, prompting street protests.
“There is no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation at this time,” assistant attorney general Todd Blanche said in a Jan. 13 statement. The Trump administration argued that Ross acted in self-defense after Good impeded federal law enforcement operations with his vehicle, endangering the agent.
Federal officials’ refusal to cooperate with local officials led to allegations from Democratic officials that the federal government was involved in a cover-up operation.
An investigator with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) said the agency “reluctantly withdrew” from the investigation. And six federal prosecutors resigned over demands from Good’s widow, who was present during the deadly shooting, to investigate.
Reports emerged On Saturday, Mergen testified against Tom Barrack, a close friend and fundraiser of Donald Trump who served as chairman of the president’s first inaugural committee. Mergen’s testimony was in a 2022 lawsuit against Barrack for alleged ties to UAE authorities.
At trial, Barrack’s defense team argued that Mergen lied to the grand jury about Barrack’s undisclosed ties when Barrack testified that during the interview he “didn’t feel” he was being asked to do anything on behalf of the Gulf state.
Justice Department prosecutors in New York in 2021 charged Barrack was named in a seven-count indictment charging him with “acting and conspiring to act” as an agent of the UAE between April 2016 and April 2018 and making false statements.
Barrack denied the accusations. And a jury later acquitted him of all charges of acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, obstruction of justice, and making false statements.
