A federal judge in Minnesota has tossed out grand-jury subpoenas the U.S. Department of Justice slapped on several of the state’s highest-profile leaders, including Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz’s order does more than clear their schedules. It delivers a sharp rebuke to a DOJ probe into whether state and local officials obstructed federal immigration enforcement, and it wipes away a legal cloud that has been hanging over Twin Cities politics since January.
In an order unsealed Monday, Schiltz granted Ellison’s motion to quash and concluded that the subpoenas’ “dominant purpose” was to “coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration law and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so,” according to AP News. He wrote that links between the evidence the DOJ was seeking and any plausible criminal offense were “extremely weak to nonexistent,” and said much of the material appeared to involve conduct protected by the Constitution. The decision characterizes the grand-jury process as being used for “other (unlawful) purposes” rather than for a legitimate criminal investigation.
The subpoenas landed in January at the offices of Walz, Ellison, Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and the Hennepin and Ramsey county boards of commissioners, Star Tribune reported. The paper notes that the FBI had previously removed Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension from parts of the probe into the fatal shooting of Renee Good, a move that prompted Moriarty and Ellison to announce an independent review. After Schiltz’s ruling, Walz called the decision “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy,” while Ellison labeled the subpoenas a piece of politically motivated retaliation.
Background: Operation Metro Surge
The subpoenas trace back to “Operation Metro Surge,” the federal immigration deployment launched in December 2025 that brought thousands of ICE and DHS officers into the Twin Cities and quickly became a flashpoint, according to The Washington Post. The operation was followed by chaotic street encounters, including multiple fatal shootings in January, and by court findings that in some instances federal agents disregarded judicial orders. That legal tangle complicated life for investigators and prosecutors at every level. Schiltz’s decision to quash the subpoenas does not settle those broader fights over the surge, but it does knock out the DOJ’s immediate effort to pull state and local officials into a grand-jury probe.
Why it matters
Legal observers say the ruling delivers a clear judicial check on how the department has recently wielded its investigative powers and could tighten the reins on prosecutors’ use of grand juries in politically charged cases, a trend noted by AP News. For Minnesota’s political class, the decision removes an immediate legal threat but leaves intact a thicket of separate criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits tied to Operation Metro Surge. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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