The Department of Justice (DOJ) has formally filed a misconduct complaint against the Minnesota federal judges who admitted to the New York Times that they are using their power as judges to obstruct the Trump administration’s agenda.
Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter told followers on X that the DOJ is targeting the judges for engaging in an “unethical partisan press tour on immigration cases.”
“Judges who covet publicity undermine public confidence in the rule of law,” McCotter added.
Attorney General Todd Blanche blasted the clearly biased judges, saying that the U.S. government has 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.”
The complaint comes after the New York Times published a story early in September featuring Judge Patrick Schiltz and five of the seven judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit who spoke to the paper to reveal their experiences over the president’s crack down on illegal immigration.
The judicial misconduct complaint names Judge Schiltz, who was appointed to the bench by George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton-appointed Judge John Tunheim, both of whom have openly criticized Trump’s immigration policies.
Tunheim, for instance, told the Times that ICE was not arresting the right migrants, and said, “They weren’t arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street.”
The DOJ, though, says the judges’ public conduct “is particularly egregious” and that they “flagrantly violated the Code of Judicial Conduct with their improper and unethical comments.”
The complaint added that Schiltz’s comments were “overly political and concern matters that are pending” before the court, and 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 said.
The DOJ is requesting that the court order both judges to recuse themselves from cases involving DHS and its departments, including ICE. The complaint also wants an investigation into “improper conduct” of the Minnesota judges who “‘covet publicity” rather than adhering to the rule of law by adjudicating cases or controversies.
Schiltz has already issued a statement proclaiming his innocence. “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,” he said, and citing the Judicial Conference guidelines for what judges can say in public, he added, “that is exactly what I did.”
The 8th Circuit Court also averred that the judges who spoke to the Times acted “well within” the ethics rules.
