Tag: minnesota

Minneapolis anti-ICE activist group promotes ‘jury nullification training’ amid high-profile cases

A Minneapolis-based activist network is now openly advertising “jury nullification training,” raising new concerns about the integrity of jury trials in the Twin Cities.

Defend612, which seeks to support “resistance to the ICE occupation in Minneapolis,” is promoting two virtual sessions titled “The People’s Pardon or Jury Nullification,” scheduled in the coming weeks.

One event description frames the effort: “Because when systems fail to deliver justice, the people must.”

“Jury Nullification is a legal tactic has been [sic] used to protect one another from unjust laws and political persecution,” the description says. “We will learn about jury nullification — or the people’s pardon — how it’s been used, ways it can stem authoritarian overreach, and how we can use it today.”

In an email to supporters, Defend612 described the trainings as a means of “protecting our local heroes through Jury Nullification.”

From online posts to organized instruction

Jury nullification occurs when jurors vote to acquit a defendant despite believing the law was broken, often because they oppose the law itself or how it is enforced.

Last month, Alpha News reported on a Minnesota Democratic Party official urging his followers to use jury nullification in a federal case involving an assault against an immigration enforcement officer.

Nick Kruse, a former vice president of the Minnesota Young DFL and current at-large director of Stonewall DFL, wrote in a since-deleted post on X that “no one should be going to prison for defending our city against ICE.”

Kruse was referring to the federal case of Claire Louise Feng, who is accused of biting off the tip of a U.S. Border Patrol agent’s finger during a struggle in Minneapolis.

He encouraged followers to spread information about jury nullification and to “act neutral” during voir dire — the jury selection process — in order to get seated.

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Teachers Union and School Districts SUE Trump Administration Over ICE

Two Minnesota school districts and the state’s largest teachers union have filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging a new immigration enforcement policy that allows federal agents to operate at or near schools and bus stops. 

The complaint, filed February 4 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, names the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Kristi Noem, and subagencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as defendants.

The plaintiffs—Fridley Public Schools, Duluth Public Schools, and Education Minnesota—argue that the administration’s decision to rescind a decades-old “sensitive locations” policy has disrupted school operations across the Twin Cities region. 

They contend that enforcement activity near school grounds has reduced attendance, forced districts to expand remote learning, and diverted administrative resources.

The lawsuit seeks to reinstate restrictions that previously limited immigration enforcement at schools absent exigent circumstances or supervisory approval.

The policy change at the center of the dispute occurred in January 2025, when DHS formally revoked prior guidance that discouraged immigration arrests at schools, churches, and similar locations.

The updated directive replaced categorical restrictions with officer discretion, stating that federal agents would rely on “common sense” rather than bright-line prohibitions. 

DHS defended the move as necessary to prevent criminals from exploiting geographic safe havens to avoid apprehension.

The litigation follows “Operation Metro Surge,” a high-profile federal enforcement initiative in the Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area.

As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, the operation deployed thousands of agents to address what officials described as a backlog of criminal and fraud-related investigations. 

Just days after the lawsuit, thousands of high school students across the country—including students in several Minnesota districts involved in the litigation—staged walkouts to protest ICE and call for the agency’s abolition.

Videos circulated rapidly on social media, showing coordinated demonstrations framed as acts of civic resistance. 

In some districts, students who had walked out to protest immigration enforcement are now enrolled in systems suing the very agency responsible for carrying it out.

Immigration law is written by Congress and enforced by the executive branch. The prior “sensitive locations” guidance was an internal policy, not a statute.

Its rescission does not eliminate constitutional protections, judicial warrants, or due process. Instead, it restores operational flexibility to agents tasked with enforcing federal law.

Democrats maintain that enforcement presence near schools generates fear that undermines educational stability. District officials point to funding formulas tied to attendance and argue that declines in enrollment threaten budgets.

The complaint alleges that DHS failed to provide sufficient justification for abandoning the prior policy and violated administrative rulemaking procedures under the Administrative Procedure Act.

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Minnesota Sheriff Whose Office Missed Billions in Fraud Now Attacks ICE

On Friday morning, Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt stood before reporters and expressed relief that “Operation Metro Surge” was coming to an end. 

She spoke about rebuilding trust and emphasized that her office does not conduct civil immigration enforcement, adding that “nothing has changed” in the county’s policies.

The speech was among the most inflammatory anti-ICE remarks she could have delivered. Operation Metro Surge was a federal enforcement effort launched under the direction of the Trump administration’s border team, including Border Czar Tom Homan, in response to escalating tensions and public safety concerns in Minneapolis and surrounding areas. 

The purpose was straightforward: enforce existing federal immigration law and prevent further instability. When violence threatens to spiral out of control, federal authorities have both the power and the obligation to intervene.

Instead of acknowledging that reality, Sheriff Witt framed the operation primarily as a political burden placed on her office. She spoke at length about strained relationships and eroding trust, suggesting that local law enforcement had been forced into difficult positions by federal action.

What she did not do was thank federal officers for stepping in during a volatile moment. She did not acknowledge that ICE enforces statutes written by Congress. She did not recognize that immigration enforcement is a lawful function of the executive branch, not an optional courtesy.

Minnesota has spent the past several years confronting overlapping crises of disorder and fraud. The Feeding Our Future scandal alone involved what federal prosecutors described as a $250 million scheme to exploit taxpayer-funded child nutrition programs. 

Additional investigations into Medicaid and autism services fraud revealed systemic vulnerabilities that drained public funds of well over $8 billion and embarrassed state leadership. 

These were large-scale criminal operations that flourished under the watch of state and local authorities.

Public safety is not limited to street patrols. It includes institutional competence and, above all, requires proactive enforcement and coordination across agencies. 

Yet at the very moment federal officers increased their presence to deter violence and enforce immigration law, the sheriff’s message signaled distance, not partnership.

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The Bigger Problem that the Tim Walz NGO Scandal Has Exposed 

The Minnesota nonprofit fraud scandal, now expected to cost taxpayers more than $9 billion, is being dismissed by many as an isolated failure. However, this is far from the case, and writing it off as such would be a colossal mistake.

What it actually revealed is a broader problem in the Swamp—that institutions claiming to represent others often operate with little accountability and then quietly drift away from the very people who are footing the bill.

In Minnesota, nonprofit organizations became the perfect vehicle for abuse—shielded from scrutiny, politically protected, and flush with public money. However, in Washington, trade associations operate in largely the same way. They collect millions in dues from American businesses while increasingly choosing to serve their own leadership’s personal and political interests instead of those of their dues-paying members.

Their members only care about being able to deliver good-paying jobs to their employees and securing a more favorable regulatory climate so they can deliver lower-priced goods for the American people; however, you’d never know that if you looked at the public policy priorities of their association leadership officials, who seem more interested in fitting in at woke radical leftist cocktail parties.

Jay Timmons, president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, has repeatedly broken with Republicans by sharply criticizing Donald Trump, including after January 6, when he called Trump’s actions “mob rule,” urged Vice President Mike Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment, and faulted the administration’s handling of COVID-19. Despite that record, Timmons later congratulated Trump on his November 2024 victory and suggested they should “work together like we did before.” At the same time, Timmons praised and partnered with Joe Biden, backing the administration’s COVID-19 vaccine campaign and publicly supporting the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act. In 2022, he also donated to Adam Kinzinger’s leadership PAC just days after Kinzinger was censured by the Republican Party.

If a presidency was truly so dangerous five years ago that it was deemed incompatible with democracy itself, it is fair to ask how the same association leadership can now claim alignment and cooperation without any explanation, accountability, or evident change in approach. That kind of abrupt pivot invites skepticism from dues-paying manufacturers who expect their trade groups to be guided by member interests, not political positioning or reputational hedging.

The problem is compounded by a reliance on press releases in place of real relationships. Press releases don’t move policy—relationships do. Manufacturers don’t pay dues for moral posturing, elite signaling, or ceremonial access; they pay for results. When leadership spends years attacking an administration only to reverse course once the election is settled—substituting optics for engagement—it raises a fundamental question about who the organization is really serving.

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Josh Hawley Calls For Indictment of Minnesota AG Keith Ellison over Alleged Ties to Somali Fraudsters

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) is calling for the indictment of Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) over accusations that he accepted campaign contributions from Somali fraudsters for helping them evade investigation by state and federal officials.

During a Senate Homeland Security hearing on Thursday, Hawley grilled Ellison about a report from the New York Post published last year that accuses the top Minnesota official of taking campaign contributions from Somalis involved in the Feeding Our Future fraud scandal, where some $9 billion in taxpayer money was stolen under the guise of feeding needy children.

According to the report, Ellison accepted several $2,500 campaign donations from Somali fraudsters after they raised concerns that federal investigators were unjustly looking at their financials.

“You are familiar with the $9 billion in historic fraud out of your state, including the $250 million in the Feeding Our Future program alone?” Hawley asked Ellison, to which he responded, “I am familiar with it.”

“Because the people who ran the Feeding Our Future program came to you in your official office in the state capitol, December 11, 2021, and asked for your help in getting investigators off their backs,” Hawley said.

He continued:

They complained to you for upwards of an hour about state investigators going after them, and they begged you to help them, and you agreed to it amazingly, and we know you did. That’s because it’s all caught on tape …why’d you help them? [Emphasis added]

Ellison denied helping the fraudsters, to which Hawley said Ellison had accepted “$10,000 from them nine days after the meeting.”

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Tim Walz Demands US Taxpayers Pay for “Damage” Caused by ICE in Minnesota – “You Don’t Get to Break Things and Then Just Leave… They Left Us with Serious Damage, Generational Trauma”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz on Thursday demanded that the federal government now pay for the “damage” they caused in Minnesota following the Trump Administration’s withdrawal from immigration operations in the state.

First, he thanked the radical left-wingers in Minnesota for violently driving federal agents out of the state, which resulted in the death of two anti-ICE rioters. He then revealed that he plans to provide forgivable “$10 million one-time targeted loans” from the Minnesota small business emergency fund.

But Walz wants US taxpayers to foot the bill. “The federal government needs to pay for what they broke here,” Walz said. They are going to be accountability on the things that happen, but one of the things is the incredible and immense costs that were born by the people of this state.”

These costs reportedly include $1 million in rental assistance for those impacted by immigration raids and $4.3 million for police overtime pay while far-left Anti-ICE rioters took over the streets.

“They left us with serious damage, generational trauma. They left us with economic ruin in some cases. They left us with many unanswered questions,” Walz said during the press conference.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, rioters took over the streets of Minneapolis and lit a dumpster ablaze following the death of Alex Pretti, an armed leftwing agitator who had prior violent run-ins with federal agents.

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Minnesota Is Now Home to the ‘Largest Known Outbreak’ of a Fungal Skin Infection

What is going on in Minnesota? Not only is the state rife with fraud and corruption, but it’s also a hotbed of anti-ICE activism and now home to the largest known outbreak of a ringworm-causing fungal infection, Trichophyton mentagrophytes genotype VII, or TMVII. That infection is sexually transmitted.

Here’s more:

Minnesota is in the midst of what state health officials call the nation’s “largest known outbreak” of TMVII, a sexually transmitted fungal skin infection that can cause severe ringworm.

TMVII, or trichophyton mentagrophytes genotype VII, is the only known fungal-based sexually transmitted disease, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, and it’s treatable with oral antifungals.

The first case was reported in New York City in 2024, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, with Minnesota’s first reported case in July 2025, when a patient sought treatment for a genital rash. 

The health department says there are now “more than 30 confirmed or suspected cases” in the Twin Cities metro area, and other scattered cases in larger U.S. cities. It’s most prevalent among men who have sex with men.

Symptoms include ringworm on the arms, buttocks, genitals and legs, which appear as “round, coin-like rashes that are red and irritated, sometimes with bumps and pimples on top,” according to the department. The rashes can be painful, and could lead to scarring and more serious infections.

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Walz administration claims fraud in Minnesota is not ‘uniquely bad’

The Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) published a so-called “fact check” this week which attempted to “correct misleading information and outright false claims about Medicaid fraud in Minnesota.”

In its fact check, DHS pushed back against claims surrounding Minnesota’s ongoing fraud problems. One of the claims the agency “fact checked” was an unattributed statement which said: “Minnesota’s fraud problem is uniquely bad.”

Shockingly, DHS rejected that claim.

“Fraud is a nationwide challenge and is not unique to Minnesota,” it said. “Higher visibility does not equal higher fraud. Targeted misinformation thrust Minnesota in the spotlight, but we are committed to leading the nation in Medicaid program integrity and fighting fraud.”

Attempting to support its argument, DHS referenced fraud scandals that have occurred in other states. Among them was a $490 million healthcare fraud scheme in California, a $2.5 billion Medicaid scheme in Arizona, and an alleged $14.6 billion Medicaid and Medicare fraud scheme that occurred in New York, Illinois, California, and North Carolina.

While those schemes are substantial, all of those states are larger than Minnesota, and some of those states are significantly larger than Minnesota. Yet, Minnesota still rivals, or outpaces, the fraud schemes being perpetrated in those states.

Since 2022, federal authorities in Minnesota have prosecuted fraud in the $250 million Feeding Our Future scheme. Additionally, the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office estimated that fraud in 14 state-run, Medicaid-funded programs could exceed $9 billion since 2018.

Dozens of people, the overwhelming majority of whom are from the Somali community, have been charged and convicted in Minnesota’s ongoing fraud saga. Fraud has turned into the top political issue in Minnesota, and Gov. Tim Walz was all but ushered into an early retirement because of it.

On top of this, federal prosecutors in Minnesota have repeatedly highlighted how Minnesota is an outlier when it comes to this fraud.

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State senator tells Congress: ‘Minnesota is ground zero for the fraud epidemic’

A Minnesota state senator took the national stage Tuesday and delivered a blistering assessment of the state’s handling of taxpayer dollars.

Sen. Mark Koran, R–North Branch, testified before a U.S. Senate Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs subcommittee during a hearing titled “Examining Fraud and Foreign Influence in State and Federal Programs.”

The hearing, chaired by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., focused in part on what lawmakers described as widespread fraud in Minnesota’s social welfare programs.

Koran, who has served nine years in the Minnesota Senate and on the Legislative Audit Commission, painted a picture of systemic failure.

“I appreciate the opportunity to share my insight on the fraud as I’ve seen it in my nine years as Minnesota state senator as well as being on the Legislative Audit Commission,” Koran began.

He described the bipartisan commission as responsible for appointing the nonpartisan legislative auditor, whose job is to review programs across state government and flag misuse of taxpayer dollars.

“I can tell you that most of these audits are bad,” Koran said. “One of the most common failures is state agencies not verifying that grant recipients did the work that they were paid to do.”

He cited a January 2026 audit in which, he said, “state employees were backdating and fabricating documents after an audit had started, looking to mislead our auditors.”

“Fraud in Minnesota is pervasive and systemic, from the executive branch through the state agencies,” he said. “Even when the legislature puts safeguards in place, they’re often ignored and there are rarely any real consequences.”

Koran did not mince words when describing the scope of the problem.

“The devastation of this incompetence and complicity totals far more in dollars than the media, Gov. [Tim] Walz, or the Democrats admit in public. It’s not millions, it’s not hundreds of millions, it’s billions of dollars stolen,” he testified.

He placed part of the blame squarely on Gov. Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison.

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Daughter of Republican Minnesota Gubernatorial Candidate Jeff Johnson Found Stabbed to Death in Her Home

Law enforcement believes her death was a botched murder-suicide, carried out by her husband, Dylan Michael Tobler, 23.

St. Cloud Police Department officers responded to a medical emergency call around 8:20 p.m. at the couple’s locked apartment.

When they arrived, officers discovered Hallie Tobler dead from multiple stab wounds.

Dylan Tobler was also found inside with life-threatening stab wounds, which investigators determined were self-inflicted. He was transported to St. Cloud Hospital, where he remains in stable condition and in police custody.

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