Attorney General Kathy Jennings day joined a coalition of attorneys general in issuing the following statement in response to the complaint that the U.S. Department of Justice filed yesterday against nearly all federal district court judges in Minnesota:
“The announcement by U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche that the Department of Justice has filed a judicial misconduct complaint against nearly all federal district court judges in Minnesota 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 earlier this year during Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota — including the Administration’s well documented non-compliance at the time with hundreds of Minnesota federal district court orders — even though sometimes the same courts ruled with the 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 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 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, Minnesota federal district court 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 our country couldn’t be higher.”
Joining Attorney General Jennings in issuing the statement are Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who led the coalition, and the attorneys general of Arizona, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, and Oregon.