DOJ blocks ICE shooting charge over prosecutor's 'strongest possible' objections, months after case first stalled

…(cont) Some months go by. Federal prosecutors in Minnesota plan to charge the agent with a federal crime, the one called deprivation of rights under color of law, the kind of charge brought in the George Floyd case, with the kind of sentence that goes with it. ProPublica has the paperwork. The state of Minnesota, separately, has its own charges, felonies, one of them assault with a dangerous weapon.

Then the agent walks out of a jail in Texas at the end of a ninety-day hold, because the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, refused Minnesota's request to send him back. That's late August. The New York Times ran it on the twenty-ninth: the prosecutors planned to charge him, and then he walked free.

Then, late on a Tuesday, the first of September, the federal prosecutor working the case, an assistant U.S. attorney named Matthew Evans, writes that the civil rights charge has been taken off the table, and the department will bring a false statements charge instead, the small one. He writes that the decision "is being directed by the Main Justice and the US Attorney." He writes: "I objected in the strongest possible terms and fought it as hard as I could. It wasn't enough."

And then the department, asked about it, says charging decisions "are collaborative and deliberative and adhere to the facts and law of that specific case and controversy," and that it "has not yet reached a conclusion on this matter."

That's the whole list. I told you I'd be quick.

Now, there's a corner store by me, and the owner keeps a suggestion box on the wall by the register. Nice box. Wooden, with a slot. I've put things in it. What I noticed one morning, waiting on my coffee, is that the key to the box is on the same ring as the key to the store, and the man who opens it is the man the suggestions are about. I watched him empty it once. He read every one. He nodded at a couple of them. Then he put them in his apron and went back to what he was doing, and the store was the store.

I'm not saying anything about the store. I'm saying I understood, that morning, what the slot was for.

So here's my trouble, and I'm sorry to keep you, I know you're closing up. The prosecutor says the direction came from Main Justice and the U.S. attorney. He says he objected to them, in the strongest possible terms, and it wasn't enough. The department says no conclusion has been reached. Both of those are on the same page in the same newspaper on the same day.

If no conclusion has been reached, what was it that his objection wasn't enough to stop?

And, one more thing, I almost forgot. He put it in writing that he used the strongest possible terms. I keep going back to that, and I apologize. Who was the box addressed to, and who had the key?