A half dozen former U.S. Capitol insurrection prosecutors, who helped lead the largest criminal prosecution in American history, have crafted a strategy memo to prompt Congress to investigate potential misconduct by federal immigration agents.
The four-page memo, which was obtained by CBS News on Sunday, details a series of investigative recommendations for Congressional committees to probe allegations of excessive force and other violations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis. The group of prosecutors recommends Congressional investigators use some of the same tools and techniques employed by the Justice Department between 2021 and 2025 in investigating the Capitol siege, during which more than 140 police officers were injured and more than 1,500 defendants were arrested.
The recommendations were shared with ranking members of the House Homeland Security Committee, the House Judiciary Committee and the House Oversight Committee, in the wake of the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The Justice Department declined to open an investigation of the agent who shot and killed Good, while they were criticized for equivocating about an investigation into Pretti’s killing.
The former prosecutors, each of whom departed the Justice Department in 2025 after President Trump’s inauguration, recommend Congress hire a group of former FBI and Homeland Security agents who are “familiar with use of force” policies.
“You benefit from the fact that many career agents and prosecutors have already left the FBI and Department of Justice, or plan to do so; many will be willing to join this effort,” the memo said. “Once you’ve organized the team, divide your investigation into general categories of misconduct, including potentially: offenses against detained migrants, offenses against non-detained migrants, offenses against protesters and observers, and flaunting of court orders.”
The prosecutors’ memo comes amid concerns that the Trump administration is not vigorously pursuing leads in the Minneapolis killings and other related allegations of misconduct involving federal immigration enforcement personnel.
“The Department of Justice has no apparent interest in investigating CBP and ICE crimes, so it will fall to Congress to do a comprehensive, national investigation into these agencies’ misconduct,” Brendan Ballou, one of the six former prosecutors who issued the memo, told CBS News. “By preserving evidence now, Congress can tee up prosecutions in the future, which in turn will discourage CBP and ICE misconduct in the present.”
The group of former January 6 prosecutors also recommended that Congress solicit tips, videos and photos of potential ICE and Customs and Border Protection misconduct from the public. In their memo, the prosecutors said the Minneapolis killings and other episodes of alleged misconduct have triggered “public revulsion” that is parallel to the anger and outrage after the Capitol Insurrection.
The memo also recommends Congress should partner with “cooperative local and state law enforcement to enable sharing of information” and search the social media profiles of the known officers involved, as well as the victims themselves, to determine their culpability.
The former prosecutors said Congress should also “send preservation requests to Google and other technology companies for ‘geofence’ data on potential nearby witnesses.”
The historic January 6 prosecutions were fueled by hundreds of tips from the public, including from volunteers who scoured the many images and videos of the riotous attack on the Capitol to determine the potential identities of the people involved.
The Justice Department secured a 100% conviction rate in jury trials against the Capitol attackers.
Mr. Trump reversed the successes of the Justice Department by granting clemency to more than 1,500 of his supporters who were convicted or charged in relation to the Capitol riot. In his pardon, the president said the prosecutions were “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years.”
