Tim Walz Escapes the Subpoena Fight, but Not the Stench

Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz just gave Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties the ruling they wanted. 

He quashed grand jury subpoenas served in January during a DOJ investigation into whether state and local leaders obstructed federal immigration enforcement during Operation Metro Surge.

Schlitz wrote that the subpoenas had “extremely weak to nonexistent” links to possible crimes and said their “dominant purpose” was coercion and retaliation. From Just the News:

The subpoenas are part of an investigation into allegations they impeded law enforcement during an immigration operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. 

In the ruling, which was unsealed on Monday, U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz wrote that the Trump administration's subpoenas were meant to "coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them" for refusing to do so, the Associated Press reported.

Schlitz wrote that the connections between the information sought and any possible criminal violation appeared to be "extremely weak to nonexistent." 

The Associated Press reported that Walz called the ruling a victory for the rule of law and democracy, while Frey said the investigation was never about justice, law, and order.

The judge ruled that there appeared to be “extremely weak to nonexistent” connections between the information sought in the subpoenas and any possible criminal violation. The subpoenas seek materials “that largely if not entirely relate to constitutionally protected conduct,” the judge wrote, noting that Minnesota has the legal right not to devote its resources to enforcing federal immigration law.

The Justice Department “is not conducting a criminal investigation,” the judge wrote, “but is instead using the grand jury process for other (unlawful) purposes.”

The evidence that the subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons is overwhelming, the judge said, arguing that the Justice Department “has struggled — without success — to identify a single plausible investigatory justification” for them.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

Walz, in a statement, called the ruling “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy.”

Pfft! Fine.

Let them enjoy their press release. A judge can end a subpoena fight, but he can't answer every question Minnesota leaders would rather leave buried.

Operation Metro Surge wasn't a small paperwork dispute; it brought over 3,000 federal immigration officers into the Twin Cities, and border czar Tom Homan later said it produced more than 4,000 arrests.

During the surge, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both Minnesota residents and U.S. citizens, were killed by federal immigration officers in separate Minneapolis incidents. Walz asked President Donald Trump for impartial investigations and fewer federal agents.

Then came the other side of the same civic collapse; federal prosecutors have charged 15 Minnesotans in an alleged conspiracy to violently oppose immigration enforcement.

U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Daniel Rosen said the alleged conspiracy used force, not merely speech. Charges include conspiracy to impede or injure federal officers, solicitation, threats, assault, and destruction of government property.

So forgive the rest of the country for refusing to clap while Walz and Frey take a courtroom victory lap. A community can oppose bad tactics, demand accountability for deadly force, and still expect local leaders to help keep public order. Speech is protected; sabotage isn't. A city should never have to choose between civil rights and basic law enforcement.

Minnesota's larger problem is the long shadow of fraud and denial. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) released a June report accusing senior Minnesota officials, including Walz and Ellison, of knowing about widespread fraud in federally funded social programs while failing to act fast enough to stop it. From Comer's report:

Below are some key findings from the report:

• Governor Walz and Attorney General Ellison were aware of credible and systemic fraud in Minnesota’s social services programs as early as 2019 but failed to take action to protect taxpayer funds.
• Minnesota state agencies had clear authority to suspend or stop payments to providers suspected of fraud without requiring independent direction from courts, law enforcement agencies, or the federal government but failed to act. 
• Minnesota officials continued directing taxpayer dollars to Feeding our Future and other high-risk entities despite identifying serious program deficiencies, enabling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds to flow to fraudsters.
• Testimony and documents show that concerns about litigation and accusations of discrimination—not legal barriers or directives from law enforcement—were cited as reasons for continuing payments to suspected fraudsters. 
• The Walz Administration retaliated against state employees who raised concerns about fraud, while senior state officials prioritized managing political and media fallout over addressing known fraud vulnerabilities.
• Failures to prevent fraud resulted in an estimated $300 million in federal child nutrition funds being lost and potentially $9 billion in Medicaid-related funds to be lost or placed at serious risk.

Minnesota officials dispute the scale and politics of those allegations, but the pattern is plain enough: warnings, excuses, damage, then a lecture about democracy.

A subpoena ruling doesn't settle Minnesota's deeper trouble; it only says DOJ didn't persuade one federal judge that the subpoenas belonged in a criminal investigation.

Maybe the judge is right on the law; perhaps an appeals court will see the record differently. Either way, Walz didn't earn sainthood from a motion to quash, and Frey didn't earn a medal for turning Minneapolis into a national symbol of exhaustion.

The left's celebration has a strange moral confidence; they speak as if nobody should ask why Minnesota became ground zero for federal raids, deadly street confrontations, fraud probes, angry protests, and official finger-pointing.

For years, Walz has tried to sound like the reasonable man in the room while hard questions kept piling up. At some point, polished language becomes part of the dodge.

Maybe karma will have to wait for the appeal. Minnesota still deserves answers; so do the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti; and so do taxpayers whose money was poured into programs now surrounded by fraud allegations.

A judge can quash a subpoena, but he can't make the stench disappear.

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