Minnesota’s U.S. attorney’s office has been pulled into crisis after a wave of career prosecutors resigned or retired amid objections to directives tied to the Trump administration, according to an Associated Press report. The shakeup contributed to the dismissal of a federal case against Cory Allen McKay, described by the report as a longtime violent offender who walked free after the prosecutor assigned to his file left the office. McKay’s lawyer, Jean Brandl, said she learned of the decision after her client had already been released.
According to the report, the office led by Trump appointee Daniel Rosen has seen staffing losses that have complicated its ability to move cases through the court system. A former federal prosecutor, who was not authorized to discuss personnel matters and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity, said the number of assistant U.S. attorneys in Minnesota fell from more than 40 before Trump retook office to fewer than two dozen. The exodus, the report said, began last year as prosecutors “saw the writing on the wall” and accelerated after Justice Department appointees intervened in a separate investigation involving a fatal ICE shooting.
AP reported that some prosecutors objected to efforts described as politicization and to directives that shifted resources toward immigration cases. The report also said career prosecutors chafed at repeated court order violations by ICE that angered judges. In a broader context, prosecutors and officials in other states were also affected by resignations, the report said, but Minnesota was hit especially hard.
A key flashpoint described in the report involved the Jan. 7 fatal shooting of Renee Good by ICE officer Jonathan Ross. The Trump administration characterized Good as a “domestic terrorist” and argued Ross acted in self-defense, while some prosecutors viewed the killing as a possible murder. AP also described a letter released last week by eight former permanent or acting U.S. attorneys in Minnesota, saying prosecutors “could not in good conscience participate in what they have seen.”
The personnel churn has played out in concrete casework, the report said. Court records described by AP show the office has been operating in crisis mode—bringing in prosecutors from other states, asking judges to delay hearings, and dismissing cases or seeking plea agreements. Defense lawyers, AP said, are trying to capitalize by demanding speedy trials for clients and filing motions that require responses from prosecutors.
McKay’s case illustrates how the disruption reached the courtroom. The report said McKay, 47, was scheduled to stand trial next month on methamphetamine trafficking charges that could have led to decades in prison, after a federal indictment returned in May 2025. AP described that the investigation began in 2024 when FedEx employees in Fargo, North Dakota discovered a package arriving from California addressed to McKay and containing nearly 10 pounds of highly pure meth. Prosecutors said police estimated the street value at $80,000, and AP reported that investigators found text messages linking McKay to other suspected drug traffickers in Minnesota, California, Chicago and Mexico.
AP reported that McKay was jailed for nearly a year awaiting trial on state charges before the federal indictment, which included a sentencing enhancement tied to prior violent felony convictions. The report listed aggravated assault in 2013, domestic assault by strangulation in 2017, and assault causing substantial bodily harm in 2021, and it described prosecutors alleging McKay fired a short-barreled shotgun under a victim’s chin. The report said longtime assistant U.S. attorney Thomas Hollenhorst had argued last summer that McKay was too dangerous to be released even to a substance abuse program.
In late January, the report said, the prosecutor situation changed. AP said the office asked for a delay on the grounds that Hollenhorst was “retiring unexpectedly,” and a judge moved the trial date from Feb. 12 to March 2. But the office dropped the case days later in a filing that offered no explanation, and a judge ordered McKay’s immediate release. AP reported that Hollenhorst declined comment, and McKay walked out of the Sherburne County Jail in Elk River—about 30 miles outside Minneapolis—on Jan. 31.
McKay’s lawyer, Brandl, told AP that while the outcome was a victory for her client, she said Hollenhorst’s retirement was “a huge loss.” She said he was a “very good prosecutor” and that he was “reasonable and saw our clients as human beings, not just numbers.” AP reported that attempts to reach McKay were unsuccessful, and that the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment, though the office’s former spokesperson, prosecutor Melinda Williams, was among those who left.
The report also described other drug trafficking matters dismissed as prosecutors departed. AP said the office dropped a case involving a man arrested in September after investigators found 7,600 fentanyl pills and 15 pounds of cocaine intended for trafficking in the Twin Cities, and it dismissed a third case involving a Rochester man charged with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine after police found three pounds of the drug in a vehicle search in January 2025. Clay County Sheriff Mark Empting said that with prosecutors leaving the office, it was presenting challenges across the state, and he said McKay would pose “a big public safety concern” if he returned to Moorhead.
Beyond the McKay file, outside prosecutors warned about the broader public safety impact. John Marti, a Minneapolis lawyer who was a longtime fraud prosecutor in the office until 2015, told AP that the result would be a diminished ability to target dangerous fraudsters, sexual predators, violent gangs and drug traffickers. Local officials, AP reported, said the office could be unable, at least temporarily, to bring charges against some of the state’s most serious offenders while it rebuilds capacity.