MINNEAPOLIS — A federal judge has blocked President Trump’s g escalating campaign against Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and other elected officials. Judge Patrick Schiltz declared that Trump was guilty of illegally harassing people he didn’t like. The judge called it a deplorable and grossly illegal misuse of presidential power that Trump was seeking grand jury indictments of the Minnesota state and local leaders. Trump has been hammering them for months as traitorous in countless tirades forthe citizen resistance to his Operation Metro Surge — a brutal military occupation of the state over the winter. In February Trump finally was humiliated into withdrawing his troops by the hundreds. He has been seething since and vowing retribution. Judge Schiltz’s ruling was the latest in a growing number of judicial rebukes of Trump for using U.S. Justice Department to carry out personal vendettas. Critics use the word “weaponize” for his shifting the Justice Department’s energies into a vehicle to bully and harass political rivals. Judge Patrick Schlitz was blunt. About Trump’s Minnesota actions he found the President’s “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.” Among those whom Trump ordered the U.S. Justice Department to seek indictments:
> Tim Walz, governor.
> Keith Ellison, state attorrney general.
> Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis.
> Kaohly Her, mayor of St. Paul.
> Officials in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.
Schiltz. Chief judge for the U.S. District of Minnesota. A Harvard Law School graduate with honors. Appointed to the federal bench by President George W. Bush, a Republican, in 2005.
Anatomy of judge’s rebuke
Judge Schitz ruled that there appeared to be “extremely weak to nonexistent” connections between the information sought in the U.S. Justice Deoartment’s subpoenas and any possible criminal violation. The subpoenas seek materials “that largely if not entirely relate to constitutionally protected conduct,” the judge wrote. He noted that Minnesota has the legal right not to devote its resources to coercing federal immigration law. The Justice Department “is not conducting a criminal investigation but is instead using the grand jury process for unlawful purposes, Schiltz said. He called the evidence overwhelming that the Department’s subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons. About the Justice Department attempts to justify Trump’s motives: “The Department has struggled — without success — to identify a single plausible plausible investigatory justification.”