berg80
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- Oct 28, 2017
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Judge Finds Justice Dept. Overreach in Subpoenas to Minnesota Officials
A federal judge in Minnesota quashed the Justice Department’s subpoenas of state and local officials in a ruling unsealed on Monday, finding that the Trump administration had engaged in a politically motivated and improper use of the grand jury process. Those subpoenas were issued at the height of the administration’s winter immigration crackdown in the state.Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz wrote in a highly critical opinion that “the dominant purpose of the challenged subpoenas is 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.”
Judge Schiltz, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush (and who clerked for Scalia), had previously raised concerns with the conduct of the Trump administration during Operation Metro Surge. That crackdown, which involved thousands of agents, led to thousands of arrests in Minnesota and three shootings in Minneapolis.
Judge Finds Justice Dept. Overreach in Subpoenas to Minnesota Officials
The judge quashed the subpoenas, writing that they were designed to “harass and retaliate against” Democratic officials who bucked the Trump administration on immigration enforcement.
Here's how threads like this usually go. A post is written illustrating one of the ways the trump regime has abused its authority by trying to prosecute a political enemy. trump fans reflexively respond by claiming Don was the victim of similar injustice by D's or by Biden's DoJ. Or there's some kind boilerplate rebuttal from the regime like this...........The Justice Department said in a statement on Monday that it “takes the unlawful obstruction of federal law enforcement operations extremely seriously and will continue to act in full compliance with the law to investigate these matters.”
It didn't comply with the law, which is the point.
From there the discussion devolves in to a fruitless exchange with those loyal to trump repeating his specious assertions of victimhood.
Let's not do that. Let's take this matter for what it is regardless of what you believe was done to trump. So what is it?
Judge Schiltz wrote on Monday that the justification given for the subpoenas was an investigation into possible violations of federal laws that make it illegal to conceal an undocumented immigration or obstruct the government. But in fact, the judge wrote, the “subpoenas are directed to investigating activity that is not only legal, but constitutionally protected from interference by the very federal government that issued the subpoenas.”
Maybe this once it would be permissible for trump fans to allow themselves a rare acknowledgement of wrongdoing. You wouldn't have to admit trump lost the 2020 election or that he refused to comply with a subpoena for the return of classified docs. Just that this wasn't the right thing to do.
Judge Shultz................"Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harrass political opponents or to coerce them in to taking official action, particularly official action that the federal government can not directly require those political opponents to take, is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand jury process. The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes. The Court has no doubt they were."
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