https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mnd.234490/gov.uscourts.mnd.234490.1.0.pdf
Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action-particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take-is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use the grand-jury process. ("If prosecutors are forbidden from meddling with an official's duties, then they cannot use criminal investigations to pressure him into enacting their preferred policies" ). The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes.
The Court has no doubt that they were. On the one hand, the evidence that the challenged subpoenas were issued for unlawful reasons is overwhelming. On the other hand, the Department has struggled-without success-to identify a single plausible investigatory justification for the subpoenas. To elaborate: First, the public record, as recited above, is replete with direct evidence of the Trump administration-including the highest-ranking officials of the Department threatening and attempting to punish states and localities that have adopted "sanctuary" policies, as well as attempting to coerce those states and localities to devote resources to assist federal immigration enforcement....
This course of events - in and of itself-establishes beyond reasonable dispute that the subpoenas were a part of a broader campaign to coerce state and local officials in Minnesota to assist the Trump administration in its enforcement of immigration laws. And, of course, this campaign played out against the backdrop of the Trump
administration's well-established history of using criminal investigations to retaliate against and pressure the President's political and personal adversaries. ... (observing that "being perceived as the President's adversary has become risky in recent years" and citing numerous recent examples); id. at *8 ("A mountain of evidence suggests that the dominant purpose [of the subpoenas at issue] is to harass [Federal Reserve ChairJerome] Powell to pressure him to lower [interest] rates" ).
Second, the Department's asserted investigatory purpose for the challenged subpoenas is risible. Recall that the subpoenas seek broad categories of materials - going back to January 1, 2025, roughly a year before Operation Metro Surge began-relating to federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota and state officials' cooperation (or lack thereof) with federal immigration officials. It is important to stress, once again, that the Constitution forbids the federal government from forcing states or their political subdivisions to enforce federal laws.
Consequently, the State of Minnesota and its political subdivisions have the right-a right grounded in the bedrock constitutional principle of federalism- to decline to devote their resources to furthering the Trump administration's enforcement of federal immigration laws. On their face, therefore, 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.
Much more at the link! The judge - Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, a Bush II appointee - isn't having any of the DoJ's bullshit.
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