The Justice Department has accused seven Minnesota federal judges of ethical violations for speaking to The New York Times about immigration cases, seeking their forced recusal from Homeland Security matters.
CNBC reported that the Department of Justice on Wednesday filed a judicial misconduct complaint against all but one of the Minnesota federal judges on active status after they gave interviews criticizing the Trump administration’s handling of immigration enforcement in the state.
DOJ asked the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to force the recusal of all seven judges who spoke with the newspaper from any case involving the Department of Homeland Security. The department also called for an investigation into what it described as the judges’ improper and unethical conduct.
Attorney General Todd Blanche did not mince words about the interviews. Seven federal judges in the District of Minnesota talked to the New York Times about cases, some of them ongoing, in a way the Justice Department sees as a clear breach of their ethical duties.
"Seven federal judges in the District of Minnesota talked to the New York Times about cases, some of which are on-going, in a manner that the Department of Justice views as a clear violation of their ethical duties."
Blanche added that their conduct has undermined public confidence in an impartial judiciary in Minnesota.
"Their conduct has undermined public confidence in an impartial judiciary in Minnesota,"
The complaint, signed by acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter and Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr., zeroed in on Senior Judge Patrick Schiltz and Senior Judge John Tunheim. Both had served as chief judge in the District of Minnesota. Schiltz succeeded Tunheim in that role in 2022 and held the post until July 1.
McCotter and Woodward stated the problem in plain terms.
"Judge Schiltz and Judge Tunheim, at least, have flagrantly violated the Code of Judicial Conduct with their improper and unethical comments to the New York Times,"
Federal judges are expected to stay out of the newspaper when they have cases pending. Going on the record with The New York Times about active immigration enforcement work raises the obvious question of whether those judges can still be seen as neutral when the Department of Homeland Security walks into their courtroom.
That same Justice Department has pressed hard on other fronts where state and local rules have tried to blunt federal authority, including when the Justice Department sued an Ohio court over a rule blocking ICE arrests at the courthouse.
The New York Times piece carried the headline “Trump’s Minnesota Surge Threatened Democracy, Judge Warns.” Schiltz and Tunheim were quoted by name. Their comments went straight at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the broader enforcement surge in Minnesota.
Schiltz had already issued a Jan. 28 order demanding that ICE stop violating orders from Minnesota federal judges in cases tied to that surge. He told the Times that ICE’s violations “created a grave threat to the rule of law.”
Tunheim offered his own assessment of who was being picked up.
"They weren't arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street,"
DHS officials had described detainees as “the worst of the worst.” The judges’ public pushback put the court itself in the middle of a running political fight over immigration enforcement rather than keeping the bench above it.
Public confidence in the courts depends on judges deciding cases, not auditioning for the front page. When jurists discuss ongoing matters with a national newspaper, litigants on the other side have every reason to wonder whether the outcome is already colored.
DOJ’s ask is broad. It wants the 8th Circuit to pull all seven judges who spoke to the Times off any matter involving the Department of Homeland Security. That is not a narrow request about one docket number. It is a demand that those judges step aside from the full run of DHS work in the District of Minnesota.
The 8th Circuit handles appeals arising from that district. The misconduct complaint lands with the court that oversees the judges in question. No outcome or response from the circuit was reported with the filing.
The filing continues a pattern of the department using the tools it has when institutions dig in against immigration enforcement. In recent months the same department has moved against local barriers, including when the Justice Department sued Milwaukee over an ordinance banning face coverings for federal agents.
Judges are not ordinary commentators. They hold life-tenured power over the people and agencies that appear before them. The Code of Judicial Conduct exists for a reason. Speaking to the press about cases still in motion is exactly the kind of conduct that code is written to stop.
The backdrop is a surge in immigration enforcement actions across Minnesota. Schiltz’s January order accused ICE of violating prior judicial directives. Protests followed. A photo caption from the period showed people joining a “national shutdown” protest against ICE in Minneapolis on Jan. 30, 2026.
None of that drama excuses federal judges from the ethical rules that apply to every other case on their docket. If a judge believes an agency is defying a court order, the remedy runs through the courtroom and the appellate process, not through a feature interview.
Blanche’s statement put the institutional stake in the open: public confidence in an impartial judiciary in Minnesota. Once that confidence erodes, every DHS case in the district carries a cloud. Recusal is the clean way to remove the cloud.
The department has also used litigation to unwind state policies that undercut federal immigration rules, as when the DOJ forced six states to drop in-state tuition for illegal immigrants and sued 15 more. Holding judges to the Code of Judicial Conduct fits the same insistence on lawful process.
The complaint targets all but one Minnesota federal judge on active status, yet only Schiltz and Tunheim are named in the available account. The other five judges who spoke to the Times are not identified. The one active-status judge left out of the complaint is also unnamed. The full docket number is not given.
The filing date is described only as “Wednesday,” with the linked complaint path showing a 2026-09 stamp. The Times article itself carried a September 17, 2026 path. A later photo caption placed Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin beside Blanche at a Justice Department press conference in Washington on Sept. 30, 2026.
What remains unsettled is whether the 8th Circuit will order the recusals, open the investigation DOJ requested, or both. The complaint is a demand for action, not a final ruling.
Separate from the Minnesota bench, the department has kept pressure on election integrity and citizenship rules in other states, including when the Justice Department warned Oregon election officials they could face prosecution for allowing noncitizens to vote. The through-line is straightforward: federal law is not optional, and the people charged with applying it do not get to freelance in the press.
Senior judges with long records on the Minnesota bench should know the difference between deciding a motion and granting an interview about one. Schiltz’s January order and the later Times quotes show a court already deep in the enforcement fight. Taking that fight into the newspaper is what triggered the misconduct filing.
Impartial courts protect everyone who walks through the door. When judges talk to The New York Times about ongoing immigration cases, they put that impartiality in doubt. The Justice Department was right to say so and right to ask the 8th Circuit to act.
