Judicial Misconduct Complaint Filed in Minnesota

Today,

we're also announcing that just a few minutes ago,

the Department of Justice filed

a judicial misconduct complaint

with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against all but one

district court judge in the District of Minnesota for

violating various judicial canons.

These judges talked to the media, or at least to The New York Times,

about cases, some of which are ongoing, in a matter

that the department views as a clear violation of their ethical

duties.

Specifically, the former chief judge spoke on the

record to The New York Times about the immigration surge late last

year and early this year in Minneapolis.

His comments,

along with a picture he appeared to pose for, were included in a September

seventeenth, twenty twenty-six article in The New York

Times.

And according to that article,

the judge sat for a ninety-minute interview with The New York Times.

According to the article,

six other members of Minnesota's federal bench also agreed to speak to New York

Times about last winter's, um, efforts in

Minneapolis. It according, again, according to the article,

included six of the seven judges who held active status

in Minnesota, at least, uh, as of, um, last winter.

During this ninety-minute interview, the judge apparently told the reporter

that the Trust-- that the Trump administration has a,

quote, "disregard for court

orders," end quote,

and continued to, um, give his view that this

disregard clogged his courthouse to a near standstill, contributing to rising

tensions in the protest-filled city of Minneapolis.

This judge also told The New York Times that, um,

his impression was that most, if not all, of the non-compliance was due to

incompetence, not due to conscious defiance of orders,

and that the

lack of re-resources led to a result that should have been anticipated and that

threatened the f-foundations of the legal system.

He complained about other things that the Trump administration had

supposedly done

in this article, all of which was on the record.

And, um, obviously, in, in our view, um, this is a,

a violation of not only the judicial canons but of his ethical duties as a

judge.

Another judge in Minnesota spoke on the record about the immigration surge as

well,

saying that they weren't arresting, meaning DHS and ICE officials,

they weren't arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the

street.

The article makes clear that the events at issue concerned

Operation Metro

Surge, an immigration enforcement operation in

Minneapolis,

and a flood of habeas corpus petitions, according to the article,

lawsuits from detainees demanding to be set free.

Now, the article did note that it's unusual for federal judges to

give extensive

interviews that reflect on periods when their rulings have made headlines.

Um, but let me just say that aside from what is

obvious from the article and from the on-the-record statements by

these judges,

there's an obvious bias against the Department of Homeland Security and

immigration authorities in Minnesota.

These judges are commenting publicly on pending and impending cases and

making political statements on matters that are currently or just

recently been before them, many of which are still

on appeal.

At least one case is currently pending before the Supreme Court.

This is a flagrant violation in the department's view of the code of judicial

conduct.

The comments are not only overtly political,

itself a violation, but also concern matters pending before

these

judges or still in the appellate process, a separate violation.

Aside from the fact on top of, of, of, of the comments themselves,

the comments are

not even true and blatantly false.

So, um, look, we, we-- this is not something that the

department

does typically,

and we took great care in determining that this was the appropriate course of

action. But according to the article, it was not only these two judges

who spoke on the record, but virtually the entire active, um,

non-s-non-senior bench, except for one judge,

and we don't know who that

judge is, the, the article didn't mention.

And so we have asked, um, the Eighth Circuit to conduct an

investigation, and in the meantime, ask that these judges

recuse themselves from every case involving DHS, either

criminal or civil in nature, because of the obvious

bias they have shown in this article with The New York Times.