Judge dismisses DoJ subpoenas against Walz and other Minnesota officials | Minnesota
A federal judge has agreed to overturn the U.S. federal government’s subpoena for leaders in Minnesota issued during the Trump administration’s controversial immigration crackdown on the state earlier this year.
The U.S. Department of Justice issued subpoenas in January to Minnesota governor Tim Walz, attorney general Keith Ellison, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey and other local officials in the Twin Cities.
The ministry said it had launched an investigation into officials who obstructed federal immigration enforcement. Local and state officials largely did not support the increase in federal enforcement, which saw federal agents kill two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, on the streets.
US District Court for Minnesota he unsealed an order A statement from Chief Justice Patrick J Schiltz on Monday indicated the subpoenas were dismissed as politically motivated. Ellison sent The decision to quash the subpoena was an “extremely rare step” by the court, the unsealed order issued Monday said.
In the order, Schiltz wrote that the Trump administration was “threatening and seeking to punish states and localities that have adopted ‘sanctuary’ policies.” He stated that “initiating an investigation for the purpose of harassing political opponents or coercing them to take official action—especially official action that the federal government cannot directly require from those political opponents—is a blatantly illegal and unethical use of the grand jury process.”
“On the one hand, the evidence is overwhelming that the challenged subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons,” he wrote. “On the other hand, the Department struggled—unsuccessfully—to identify a single reasonable investigative basis for the subpoenas.”
The court concluded that the “overriding purpose” of the subpoenas was “to compel Minnesota officials to assist the federal government in enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so,” and so the court granted the motion to quash the subpoenas.
More details coming soon…
