Today, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche announced that the Department of Justice has filed a judicial misconduct complaint against nearly all federal district judges in Minnesota. This is a desperate and dangerous attack on American judicial independence. 

The complaint is a direct attempt by the Trump administration to intimidate judges who have ruled against them in the past and an attempt to intimidate every judge against ruling against them in the future. 

Our nation’s founders knew that an independent judiciary, free from political influence, coercion, or threats is an important bulwark against tyranny. It’s how they designed our Constitution. An independent judiciary remains a bedrock principle of our democracy today.  

This complaint has nothing to do with judicial ethics and everything to do with political punishment. Blanche and Trump are trying to punish the judges who ruled against federal government actions during Operation Metro Surge — including the Administration’s undisputed non-compliance at the time with hundreds of court orders — even though sometimes the court ruled with the government. Remember that Trump promised a campaign of “reckoning and retribution” against Minnesotans during Metro Surge: federal agents terrorized, hurt, and killed Minnesotans and are still standing in the way of justice for the victims. Today’s complaint is more evidence Trump won’t let go of his campaign against Minnesota. 

Intimidation and bullying are right out of the authoritarian playbook. Trump and his allies have bullied immigrants, refugees, and the trans community, and now they’re turning their attacks toward a co-equal branch of government.  

If the government doesn’t like how any court has ruled, they have a standard recourse: they can appeal. Instead, over the past two years, federal officials have taken to social media to berate judges in Minnesota and around the country who have ruled against them. These attacks have directly led to security threats to our judges. Today’s attempt to disqualify nearly all of Minnesota’s active federal judges — all of whom observe the highest ethical standards — is a dramatic and dangerous escalation of the Trump Administration’s attacks on America’s judiciary. 

This must stop. Attacks on judicial independence are attacks on the rule of law, our democracy, and the people who safeguard it. In the New York Times article DOJ cites that has sparked this latest federal overreach, Judge Nancy Brasel says clearly, “We are allowed to speak about judicial independence, and so we should, in order to keep it.” Judge Patrick Schiltz warns, “The rule of law to democracy is like oxygen to a human body. It is something that you absolutely need to survive.”  

They’re both exactly right. Blanche and Trump are dead wrong. And the stakes for Minnesota and America couldn’t be higher. 

The Official Website of Office of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison

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