Justice Department files judicial misconduct complaint against federal judges in Minnesota

Washington — The Justice Department took the unusual step Wednesday of filing a judicial misconduct complaint against all but one of Minnesota’s federal district judges after most of them spoke to The New York Times about their concerns about the government’s handling of cases during intensified immigration enforcement earlier this year.

Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the filing of the complaint with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit during a news conference, where he also said Minnesota prosecutors had obtained an indictment against 10 non-citizens for allegedly voting illegally in previous elections.

“We have the right, like any litigant before a court, to have a fair and impartial judge,” Blanche said. “We have no choice but to act.”

At the heart of the suit is a New York Times article published earlier this month titled “Trump’s Minnesota Surge Threatened Democracy, Judge Warns.” As part of the story, Judge Patrick Schiltz gave a 90-minute interview and shared his views on what he called repeated violations of court orders by the Trump administration. The report said six of Minnesota’s seven federal judiciary members also spoke with reporters to discuss the federal government’s immigration crackdown in the state, called Operation Metro Surge.

Schiltz was appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush and served as a law clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.

The judicial misconduct complaint names Schiltz and Judge John Tunheim, appointed by President Bill Clinton, as well as “unnamed district judges” serving on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. In the article, Tunheim refutes the Trump administration’s claim that it was arresting “the worst of the worst” in Minnesota.

“They were not arresting, in my opinion, people who were dangerous criminals on the street,” Tunheim told the Times.

The Justice Department said Schiltz and Tunheim’s conduct “is particularly egregious” and asserted that both men “blatantly violated the Code of Judicial Conduct with their inappropriate and unethical comments” to the Times.

The complaint is signed by Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward.

Officials said Schiltz’s comments in particular were “overly political and concerned issues that are ongoing,” either before the judge or an appeals court. They said Tunheim’s comment was “less wordy” but “just as unethical.”

“If there is anything that constitutes a ‘serious threat to the rule of law,’ it is judges who repeatedly and brazenly overstep their authority and then launch a partisan press campaign that notably criticizes the government for filing an emergency appeal when a judge refused to rule on a search warrant request,” McCotter and Woodward wrote.

They asked the 8th Circuit to order Schiltz and Tunheim to recuse themselves from cases involving the Department of Homeland Security. They said the appeals court should also open an investigation into “improper conduct” by Minnesota judges who “covet publicity rather than adhering to the rule of law in ruling on cases or controversies.”

The Judicial Conference, the decision-making body of the federal courts, issued an advisory opinion in February providing ethical guidance to judges regarding public speech and civic engagement. The body said the ethics principles “allow judges to speak or write about the independence of the judiciary, or to advocate for the rule of law in general, including why these two values ​​are crucial to our system of government.”

Additionally, the Judicial Conference said its Committee on Codes of Conduct believes that it is “possible, at least in certain circumstances, to moderately defend judicial colleagues against illegitimate forms of criticism and attacks that risk undermining judicial independence or the rule of law, whether or not they rise to the level of persecution.”

In response to the misconduct complaint, Schiltz said in a statement: “As legal ethics experts have confirmed, I did act within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to the New York Times.” Citing the Judicial Conference committee’s advisory opinion authorizing federal judges to address “fundamental judicial issues” like the rule of law and judicial independence, Schlitz said, “that’s exactly what I did.”

A federal district court spokesperson also said that “our judges acted within that capacity,” as the Judicial Conference noted, and were “fully compliant” with the ethics rules of the federal court system.

The Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in December 2025 and deployed more than 3,000 immigration authorities in Minnesota as part of his immigration control campaign. Border czar Tom Homan announced in February that Operation Metro Surge would end and there would be a withdrawal of federal immigration agents in the state.

But the intensification of migration actions led to violent clashes between federal authorities and demonstrators. Two people, Renee Bonne And Alex Prettiwere killed in Minnesota in January, sparking criticism of tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

In federal courts, Minnesota judges have been inundated with dozens of petitions from migrants challenging their detention and demanding their release. In two extraordinary orders issued in the case of an Ecuadorian, Schiltz accused the Trump administration of failing to respond to “dozens” of court orders. It identified 96 court orders in 74 cases that it said ICE violated.

“ICE is not a law unto itself,” he wrote in an order issued Jan. 28.

In another, from two days earlier, Schiltz the Trump administration said “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any arrangements to handle the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that would certainly result” and declared that “the court’s patience is running out.”

Tensions between the Trump administration and federal judges have escalated amid a series of rulings against the federal government on a host of issues, including immigration. Mr. Trump and senior officials in his administration have attacked federal judges on social media, calling them “radical left judges” and “activists.”

A former senior official at the Department of Justice filed a complaint for judicial misconduct against Chief Judge James Boasberg, who sits in the Washington, D.C., district court last year over comments he allegedly made during a closed-door meeting of the justices.

But the the complaint was dismissed in December after the Justice Department failed to provide “sufficient evidence” about the alleged statement, according to a ruling by Jeffrey Sutton, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit. The suit was moved from the federal appeals court in Washington to the 6th Circuit due to concerns about potential recusals.

The Justice Department also filed a misconduct complaint against Judge Ana Reyes, who sits on the same court as Boasberg, over comments she made during a hearing in a case involving Mr. Trump’s plan to ban transgender people from serving in the military. The administration accused Reyes of “egregious hostile misconduct.”