A federal judge has delivered a stinging rebuke to the Department of Justice, tossing out grand jury subpoenas aimed at uncovering internal communications from Governor Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and several Twin Cities municipal leaders. In a 29-page order unsealed on Monday, June 22, 2026, Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz definitively short-circuited the federal inquiry. He ruled that the sweeping records probe was entirely devoid of legitimate legal foundations and was instead designed to penalize local Democratic officials who actively opposed aggressive federal immigration sweeps earlier this year.
The legal standoff traces back to January, when federal prosecutors launched an expansive grand jury probe into whether state and local leaders unlawfully obstructed or impeded federal agents during a major federal immigration crackdown across the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area. The resulting grand jury subpoenas demanded extensive records from the executive offices of Walz and Ellison, alongside Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, and the governing boards of Hennepin and Ramsey counties. Federal authorities alleged that localized non-cooperation policies interfered with federal operations, but local jurisdictions maintained they were under no constitutional obligation to expend municipal resources enforcing civil federal mandates.
Judge Schiltz sided emphatically with Twin Cities executive leadership, characterizing the connection between the requested data and any hypothetical criminal violation as “extremely weak to nonexistent.” The ruling stated that the Justice Department was completely unable to establish a plausible investigatory justification for its actions, concluding that the grand jury framework was unlawfully weaponized to harass, coerce, and retaliate against public officials exercising constitutionally protected conduct. In an unusual procedural move, Schiltz ordered that the underlying grand jury materials be made public, though he placed that specific directive on a temporary hold until July to give federal attorneys a window to appeal.
The judicial dismissal triggered immediate declarations of victory from Minnesota’s top political figures, who have frequently decried the perceived weaponization of the criminal justice system by the White House. In an official statement, Governor Walz lauded the decision as a critical victory for the rule of law, directly accusing federal agencies of targeting political adversaries. Mayor Jacob Frey echoed those sentiments, asserting that robust criticism of federal policy remains a core tenet of American democracy rather than a criminal offense. Conversely, representatives for the Justice Department maintained that the agency takes the intentional obstruction of federal law enforcement operations seriously, stating they acted in full compliance with standard investigatory protocols.
