By Andrew Goudsward and Brad Brooks
WASHINGTON, June 22 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge found that the Trump administration unlawfully demanded information from several Minnesota officials at the height of its immigration crackdown in the state earlier this year, ruling that the Justice Department had abused the investigative process.
The ruling by Minnesota-based U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz quashed subpoenas to the office of the state’s Democratic Governor Tim Walz and five other local and state offices, according to an order made public on Monday.
It effectively halts a probe by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department into whether Democratic officials had impeded immigration enforcement in their public resistance to the deployment of thousands of agents to conduct deportation roundups.
Schiltz, an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush, wrote that the Justice Department’s legal justification for the investigation was “risible.”
“The Court finds that the dominant purpose of the challenged subpoenas is to coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so,” Schiltz wrote. The order issued on June 17 was unsealed on Monday.
A Justice Department spokesperson said the department “takes the unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement operations extremely seriously and will continue to act in full compliance with the law to investigate these matters.”
SUBPOENAS TIED TO IMMIGRATION SURGE
The immigration surge led to numerous violent confrontations with residents and activists in the Minneapolis area, including the killings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in January.
The ruling is the latest to find that the Trump Justice Department conducted a politically motivated investigation aimed more at harassing opponents than examining potential crimes. A judge in Washington, D.C., made a similar finding in halting a probe into then-Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in March.
The Trump Justice Department sought a wide range of information on state and local policies and directives related to federal immigration operations. The subpoena recipients included Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Walz, whom Trump has frequently derided and who served as Democrat Kamala Harris’ vice presidential nominee in 2024.
Walz said in a written statement that the decision was “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat whose office was also subpoenaed, applauded the ruling. In a written statement he said, “In America, we settle our political differences at the ballot box, and it should disturb every American that Donald Trump is weaponizing the criminal justice system against people he disagrees with.”
The Justice Department issued the subpoenas in January as Trump administration officials accused Walz and other officials of deliberately stoking interference with Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the state.
Walz openly encouraged citizens to record video of ICE arrests and lauded protesters opposed to the Trump administration’s crackdown.
DOJ lawyers said the investigation was focused on whether state and local officials had violated laws barring obstructing federal operations and harbored migrants living illegally in the United States.
Recipients challenged the subpoenas in court, arguing they were issued for the improper purpose of retaliating against political opponents and coercing cooperation with the federal government.
Schiltz found that the DOJ put forward little evidence that state and local officials had violated any laws.
“The fact that connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation range from extremely weak to nonexistent only adds to the overwhelming evidence that these subpoenas were not issued to investigate, but to harass, coerce, and retaliate,” the judge wrote.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Daphne Psaledakis and Bill Berkrot)
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