Judge quashes Trump subpoenas to Minnesota officials as retaliatory

A federal judge has quashed six grand jury subpoenas aimed at Minnesota’s top state and local officials, ruling that the Trump administration used the investigative power as retaliation and without a lawful basis. U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz said the effort was designed to pressure Minnesota into helping enforce federal civil immigration law, not to pursue a legitimate criminal inquiry.

The subpoenas, issued on January 20, 2026, targeted Gov. Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Attorney General Keith Ellison, and county officials in Hennepin and Ramsey counties. They demanded records, documents and communications dating back to January 1, 2025, including materials about any refusal to assist immigration officials. Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, granted Ellison’s motion to quash in a 29-page opinion.

Schiltz said the Justice Department’s asserted purpose was “risible” and that prosecutors had failed “without success” to identify any plausible criminal basis for the subpoenas. He wrote that the links between the requested material and any possible crime were “extremely weak to nonexistent.” The ruling concluded that the subpoenas were meant to coerce cooperation with immigration enforcement and to harass and retaliate against officials who would not go along.

The decision also leaned on the Constitution’s anti-commandeering rule, which bars Washington from forcing states or local governments to carry out federal law. By that measure, Schiltz found, the subpoenas crossed a line from investigation into compulsion, turning a grand jury tool into leverage over an elected state government.

The dispute grew out of a broader fight over Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Ellison filed the underlying federal challenge on January 12, 2026, eight days before the subpoenas were served. Minnesota officials said the operation, launched in December 2025, was the largest surge of federal immigration enforcement agents in American history and came despite the state’s lower-than-average undocumented immigrant population.

Ellison and other Minnesota leaders have argued that the subpoenas were part of a wider effort to punish nonaligned state officials for resisting federal immigration demands. The Justice Department said it was investigating possible obstruction of federal immigration operations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. Schiltz’s ruling now gives Minnesota a powerful precedent: grand jury powers cannot be used as a political weapon against state and local officials who decline to help enforce a federal policy they oppose.