Justice Department alleges misconduct by ‘all but one of Minnesota’s federal judges’ • Minnesota Reformer

The US Department of Justice filed a complaint for judicial misconduct complaint in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, accusing “all but one” of Minnesota’s federal district judges of unethical conduct, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced at a news conference Wednesday.

The complaint comes from interviews given by judges Patrick Schiltz and others at New York Times earlier this month, in which Schlitz — who until recently served as chief judge for the District of Minnesota — said the federal government’s actions during Operation Metro Surge “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”

THE Times wrote that he interviewed six of the seven judges active in the Minnesota district during the federal immigration crackdown, which resulted in the wrongful arrest of hundreds of immigrants and the deaths of two U.S. citizens.

“These judges spoke to the media, or at least to the New York Times, on cases, some of which are ongoing, in a manner that the department considers a flagrant violation of its ethical duties,” Blanche said.

The code of conduct for federal judges prohibits them from speaking to the press about cases pending before the court. THE New York Times wrote that Schlitz did not comment on specific cases, but noted that it is “unusual for federal judges to give in-depth interviews that reflect periods when their decisions made headlines.”

The Department of Justice and more broadly the Trump administration have gone to war – in Blanche’s own words — with a federal judiciary that has often been the only bulwark against President Donald Trump’s expansive view of his own powers. Trump and his allies have judge personally attackeds who did not rule in favor of the president, and requested their withdrawal.

The DOJ sued the entire Maryland federal judiciary after judges ordered a 48-hour freeze on deportations of immigrants who challenged their detention in court.

The Justice Department’s complaint names only Schlitz, Judge John Tunheim and the “unnamed district judges.” Blanche did not identify which judge was not involved, although the Times in his article, it is stated that US Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko declined the request for an interview.

The move is an escalation of an ongoing fight between the Justice Department and federal judges in Minnesota, as the DOJ continues to pursue a number of controversial cases stemming from Operation Metro Surge, including conspiracy charges against a group of 15 anti-ICE activists and prosecutions of people who protested at a St. Paul church where a pastor is a top ICE official.

Minnesota judges grew frustrated this winter with the Department of Homeland Security and federal prosecutors as they ran approximately 1,000 habeas corpus casesin which immigrants claimed they had been wrongly detained. In more than 70 percent of cases, judges sided with inmates and ordered their release, according to an analysis by University of Minnesota researchers.

In some of these cases, DHS did not immediately comply with judges’ orders to return detainees to Minnesota, prompting judges to consider contempt charges against federal officials. In an extraordinary move, U.S. District Court Judge Jeffrey Bryan ordered U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen to appear in court and explain why he should not be held in contempt for violating court orders requiring the return of property of 28 people released from ICE custody.

Trump administration officials too went over Schlitz’s head in an effort to obtain an arrest warrant for journalist Don Lemon and others involved in the city’s church protests. When that warrant was blocked by the other judge, prosecutors convened a grand jury, which returned the indictments. Now Micko is review the grand jury transcripts to see if federal prosecutors acted improperly in obtaining the indictment.

The Minnesota DOJ office lost many of its most experienced prosecutors in the wake of Operation Metro Surge, at least in part because Trump administration officials in Washington pushed them to abandon the investigation into the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in south Minneapolis, and investigate Good’s widow instead.

“My impression was that most, if not all, of the non-compliance was due to incompetence,” Schlitz said in his interview with the Times“not because of conscious disregard of orders.”

The Justice Department asks all Minnesota judges in its complaint to recuse themselves from cases involving the Department of Homeland Security.