The Department of Justice has filed a judicial misconduct claim with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals against several federal judges in Minnesota after they publicly critiqued the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation in Minneapolis.
The complaint, filed Wednesday, focuses on comments made by Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim and anonymous judges in the District Court of Minnesota who spoke to The New York Times for a story, published Sept. 17, about how their court was affected by the turmoil of the immigration surge in Minneapolis. The DOJ complaint asks the Eighth Circuit to force the judges’ recusal from all cases, civil and criminal, involving the Department of Homeland Security.
The unprecedented move would affect all but one active judge in the District of Minnesota, which has been overrun by immigration litigation in large part due to last winter’s surge in enforcement. It was unclear which active judge would not be affected.
In a post Wednesday morning on X announcing the claim, Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter called the judges’ interviews “an unethical partisan press tour,” adding, “Judges who covet publicity undermine public confidence in the rule of law.”
The complaint calls Schiltz’s and Tunheim’s conduct “particularly egregious.” Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, told the Times the administration’s repeated disregard of court orders “created a grave threat to the rule of law.” Tunheim, who was appointed by Bill Clinton, told the Times the government “wasn’t arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street.”
The complaint alleges that Schiltz’s comments were “overtly political” and “outrageous,” and that they “plainly support the inference that [he] consciously or subconsciously covets publicity.” It characterizes Tunheim’s statement as “less verbose” but “equally unethical,” adding, “Opining that the Administration was not arresting illegal aliens who were ‘dangerous criminals’ is factually inaccurate and unvarnished political commentary.”
The DOJ accuses the judges of violating two of the rules, known as canons, that govern the conduct of federal judges. Specifically, the department characterizes the judges’ interviews with the Times as having violated the rules that require judges to “act in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary” and avoid “public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.”
The DOJ says the judges’ comments were especially inappropriate because they concern matters that are ongoing and that the larger issue about when and how DHS can detain immigrants is a question “in courts across the country.”
In a statement on X on Wednesday, Schlitz said he followed the code of conduct during the Time interview. “As legal-ethics experts have confirmed, I was acting well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to the New York Times,” the judge wrote. “Indeed, in February of this year, the Committee on Codes of Conduct issued an advisory opinion to emphasize that federal judges may ‘speak[] and writ[e] on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence.’ That is exactly what I did.”
The post DOJ files judicial misconduct claim against Minnesota judges after New York Times interviews appeared first on MS NOW.
