DOJ files misconduct complaint against federal judges in Minnesota

Washington — The Justice Department took the unusual step on Wednesday of filing a judicial misconduct complaint against all but one of the federal district judges in Minnesota, after most of them spoke with the New York Times about concerns over the government’s handling of cases during its surge in 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 at a press conference, where he also said that prosecutors in Minnesota had secured an indictment against 10 noncitizens for allegedly casting votes unlawfully in prior elections.

“We have a right, just like every litigant in court, to have a judge that will be fair and impartial,” Blanche said. “We have no choice but to act.”

At the heart of the complaint is a New York Times story published earlier this month headlined “Trump’s Minnesota Surge Threatened Democracy, Judge Warns.” As a part of the story, Judge Patrick Schiltz sat for a 90-minute interview and shared his views on what he said were repeated violations of court orders by the Trump administration. The article said that six of the seven members of Minnesota’s federal bench 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 clerked for 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 “anonymous district judges” serving on the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. In the article, Tunheim pushed back on the Trump administration’s claim that it was arresting the “worst of the worst” in Minnesota.

“They weren’t arresting, in my view, 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 claimed the two “flagrantly violated the Code of Judicial Conduct with their improper and unethical comments” to the Times.

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

The officials said Schiltz’s comments in particular were “overly political and concern matters that are pending,” either before the judge or an appeals court. They said that Tunheim’s comment was “less verbose” but “equally unethical.”

“If anything is a ‘grave threat to the rule of law,’ it is judges who repeatedly and brazenly exceed their authority then launch a partisan press campaign that includes criticizing the government for filing an emergency appeal when a judge refused to rule on a search warrant application,” McCotter and Woodward wrote.

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

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

Additionally, the Judicial Conference said its Committee on Codes of Conduct believes there is “room, in at least some circumstances, for the measured defense of judicial colleagues from 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 was acting well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to the New York Times.” Citing the advisory opinion from the Judicial Conference’s committee allowing federal judges to address “core judicial matters” like the rule of law and judicial independence, Schiltz said, “that is exactly what I did.” 

A spokesperson for the federal district court also said “our judges acted within this capacity” as outlined by the Judicial Conference and were “well within” ethics rules for the federal judiciary.

The Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge in December 2025 and deployed more than 3,000 immigration authorities to Minnesota as part of its immigration enforcement campaign. Border czar Tom Homan announced in February that Operation Metro Surge would be coming to an end and there would be a drawdown of federal immigration officers in the state.

But the stepped-up immigration actions led to violent clashes between federal authorities and protesters. Two people, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed in Minnesota in January, sparking criticism of the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection.

In the federal courts, judges in Minnesota were inundated with scores of petitions from migrants challenging their detentions and asking to be freed. In a pair of extraordinary orders issued in the case of an Ecuadorian man, Schiltz accused the Trump administration of failing to respond to “dozens” of court orders. He identified 96 court orders in 74 cases that he said ICE had violated.

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

In another, from two days earlier, Schiltz said the Trump administration “decided to send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result” and said “the court’s patience is at an end.”

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

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

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

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