Court quashes DOJ’s retaliatory subpoena of AG Ellison’s Office related to Operation Metro Surge

Court finds DOJ subpoenas violated Tenth Amendment

Court: DOJ’s “asserted investigatory purpose for the challenged subpoenas is risible”

Court: DOJ “struggled - without success - to identify a single plausible investigatory justification for the subpoenas”

DOJ provided no rationale for criminal probe into Attorney General Ellison

June 22, 2026 (SAINT PAUL) — Today, an order was unsealed wherein the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota took the extremely rare step of granting Attorney General Ellison’s motion to quash subpoenas issued to him and other Minnesota officials by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on January 20, 2026, which the DOJ claimed were part of a criminal investigation into Minnesota officials for obstructing federal immigration enforcement actions. However, in its ruling, the court found 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.”

On January 12, 2026, Attorney General Ellison filed a lawsuit challenging Operation Metro Surge. The next day, Donald Trump promised Minnesotans that “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING” on social media. Eight days after Attorney General Ellison challenged Metro Surge in court, the Department of Justice issued its subpoenas.

The court found that the subpoenas violated the Tenth Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from forcing states to enforce federal law and from retaliating against state officials for refusing to do so. The court also called the Department of Justice’s justification for the subpoenas “risible.” Notably, none of the conduct the DOJ claimed justified its investigation into Attorney General Ellison even involved Attorney General Ellison.

"The facts are clear: the Trump administration is targeting me because I’m standing up for the people of Minnesota,” said Attorney General Ellison. “In America, we settle our political differences at the ballot box, and it should disturb every American that Donald Trump is weaponizing the criminal justice system against people he disagrees with. No matter how much Donald Trump threatens, targets, and attacks me, I will never stop working to protect Minnesotans from Trump’s abuses of power.”

The Court’s Ruling

In a scathing 29-page opinion, the court granted Attorney General Ellison and the other parties’ motion to quash the DOJ’s subpoenas. Members of the media can and should read the court’s ruling here. The court began its analysis of the motion to quash by noting:

“The moving parties argue that the subpoenas should be quashed for a number of reasons. The Court need address only one of those reasons: the moving parties' contention that the subpoenas were issued as part of an unconstitutional effort to coerce Minnesota officials into assisting the federal government with enforcing civil immigration laws and to harass and retaliate against them for failing to do so. The Court agrees with the moving parties.” (page 14)

The Tenth Amendment

The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution prohibits the federal government from both forcing state or local governments to enforce federal law and retaliating against state or local governments who refuse to enforce federal law. In their motions to quash, Attorney General Ellison and the other parties argued that the DOJ’s subpoenas were an unconstitutional act of retaliation for the parties’ refusal to assist President Trump’s draconian immigration enforcement actions. In analyzing that argument, the court noted the following:

“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. 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.” (pages 15-16)

The court pointed to numerous instances of the Trump administration attempting to threaten, punish, and coerce Minnesota officials for refusing to comply with its immigration agenda. After reviewing that record, the court found the following:

“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.” (pages 17-18)

The DOJ’s Rationale for the Subpoenas

The court also reviewed the Department of Justice’s stated rationale for the criminal investigation and concluded that “the Department's asserted investigatory purpose for the challenged subpoenas is risible." The court examined the four examples of conduct provided by the DOJ (listed on pages 20 and 21 of the court’s ruling), which the Department said justified the subpoenas. Notably, none of the conduct cited by the Department of Justice as justifying a criminal investigation involved Attorney General Ellison. The court concluded that two of the examples involved conduct by members of the Minneapolis City Council that were not even served with subpoenas, and that “even if these two examples were relevant, the connection between them and any possible criminal conduct is so remote as to be spurious.”  

The other two examples the DOJ claimed justified their criminal investigation into Attorney General Ellison and the other parties involved guidance provided by Hennepin and Ramsey Counties instructing staff how they should interact with ICE agents on county property. The court examined the guidance and found that “none of this is itself unlawful, nor does any of this encourage unlawful behavior.” It went on to observe: 

“One would expect that, before launching a sweeping investigation into nearly the entire political structure of a sovereign state, the Department would have identified at least one instance in which a county employee actually obstructed a law-enforcement officer after being told of his or her employer's policy. Yet the Department has been unable to identify a single such instance.” (pages 24-25)

In summarizing its conclusion, the court stated:

“In sum, because the Court finds 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, the Court grants the motions to quash.” (page 25)

Background

In December of 2025, the Trump administration launched Operation Metro Surge, sending the largest surge of federal immigration enforcement agents in American history to Minnesota, despite Minnesota having a lower-than-average undocumented immigrant population. During Metro Surge, agents of the federal government committed numerous acts of violence, including killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti and shooting Julio Sosa-Celis.

On January 12, 2026, Attorney General Ellison on behalf of the State of Minnesota, and the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul filed a lawsuit challenging the legality of Operation Metro Surge. The next day, President Trump posted a message to the people of Minnesota on social media: “THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING”. The President also threatened to cut off all federal funding for Minnesota. 

Three days later, on January 16, multiple news outlets reported that the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into multiple Minnesota elected officials for obstructing federal immigration enforcement measures. The stories also reported that grand jury subpoenas had been issued, despite federal rules prohibiting prosecutors from disclosing matters before a grand jury. 

On January 20, Attorney General Ellison, Governor Walz, the Mayors of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, and the Hennepin and Ramsey Boards of Commissioners were served with subpoenas from the Department of Justice demanding communications related to federal immigration enforcement. Attorney General Ellison and the other parties issued subpoenas filed a motion to quash those subpoenas shortly thereafter.