‘Authoritarian tactic’: Justice Department launches criminal probe into Minnesota governor

2 hours ago 1

By Jana Winter

January 17, 2026 — 12.03pm

The US Justice Department is investigating Minnesota officials including Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over an alleged conspiracy to impede immigration agents, a source familiar with the probe said.

The source confirmed reports in the Washington Post, CBS News and other media outlets that the probe stemmed from statements made by Walz and Frey – both Democrats – about the thousands of federal agents deployed to the Minneapolis region in recent weeks.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is being investigated by the US Justice Department.

The Post – citing two people familiar with the matter – reported that the department had issued subpoenas for Walz and Frey, which the newspaper described as “without recent precedent”. The Justice Department did not immediately comment.

Both officials, along with other Minnesota Democrats, have denounced the ICE operation and Good’s death, and they accused Trump of intentionally fomenting chaos.

Walz, reacting on social media to news of the investigation, said the justice system was being weaponised.

“Weaponising the justice system against your opponents is an authoritarian tactic,” he said. Walz’s office said it has not received any notice of an investigation.

It came hours after newly released transcripts of emergency calls and dispatch records detailed the chaotic and dangerous scene that unfolded after an ICE agent shot Renee Good in Minneapolis – a killing that has become a national flashpoint over US President Donald Trump’s harsh immigration crackdown.

In one panicked call after another, witnesses told police what they had seen: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the street, several shots fired at a driver, her vehicle slamming into other cars, blood everywhere.

“There’s 15 ICE agents, and they shot her, like, ’cause she wouldn’t open her car door,” one caller said, adding a stream of profanities.

“ICE fired shots into her windshield,” another caller said, as the operator urged the person to slow their breathing. “She’s bleeding.”

Later, as Good was being pronounced dead at a local hospital, police were trying to evacuate ICE officers from the scene while angry protesters cut down crime-scene tape around the area, according to an incident report that recorded communications between emergency responders.

Federal Enforcement officers in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Friday.

“ICE BEING SURROUNDED,” one person transmitted about 80 minutes after the shooting, according to the report.

Minnesota’s most populous city has seen increasingly tense confrontations between residents and federal officers since Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot behind the wheel of her car on January 7 by an ICE officer, Jonathan Ross.

At the time, Good was taking part in one of numerous neighbourhood patrols organised by local activists to track and monitor ICE activities.

Renee Good in her car, moments before she was shot dead.

The shooting came a day after the Trump administration announced the deployment of 2000 immigration agents to Minneapolis in what the US Department of Homeland Security called its largest such operation in history.

The surge in DHS personnel has since grown to nearly 3000, dwarfing the ranks of local police officers in the Twin Cities metropolitan area of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Since the ICE surge, agents have arrested both immigrants and protesters, at times smashing windows and pulling people from their cars. Some officers have found themselves surrounded by onlookers jeering and shouting at them for stopping Blacks and Latinos who turned out to be US citizens.

Trump administration officials have complained about what they call the “doxing” of federal agents, including Ross, saying that puts officers at risk, leading them to wear masks to protect their identities.

In the case of the Good shooting, Trump and other administration officials accused her of deliberately trying to run over Ross and other agents at the scene with her car.

Videos showed she turned her wheels away from the officers, and Democratic city and state officials have rejected the government’s account as false.

The Trump administration has said Ross was injured during the incident – although video shows him walking around afterward – while noting he was seriously hurt months earlier in an unrelated traffic stop that resulted in him being dragged behind a vehicle.

Reuters, AP

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