Jan 20 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Justice served grand jury subpoenas to the offices of Minnesota’s governor and attorney general, and the mayor of Minneapolis, as it weighs whether their public opposition to President Donald Trump’s surge in immigration enforcement amounts to a crime.
One of the subpoenas, shared by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, orders his office’s custodian of records to produce documents since the beginning of 2025 related to “cooperation or lack of cooperation with federal immigration authorities.” Six offices were served with subpoenas, according to a Justice Department official, including those of Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison.
Trump, a Republican, has sent thousands of immigration agents into the Minneapolis area in recent weeks in a highly visible, sometimes violent surge that has little modern precedent. The agents have carried guns through the city’s snowy streets, dressed in military-style camouflage gear and masks, drawing loud protests from residents. Trump administration officials have blamed Walz and Frey for the protests, accusations they deny.
The hostility by many residents has only deepened after one agent fatally shot an American woman, Renee Good, in her car nearly two weeks ago. Federal agents have used tear gas and other chemical irritants on protesters, and have drawn outrage for questioning or arresting Black, Latino or Asian U.S. citizens, including a man who was wrongly arrested and pulled out of his home on Sunday dressed in underpants and sandals.
The subpoenas arrived a few days after it became public that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Walz, Frey and other Democrats and outspoken critics of Trump.
DEMOCRATS HAVE CALLED FOR CALM
Democratic politicians in Minnesota have called for calm, but have also been sharply critical of what they see as a politically motivated crackdown by Trump, and have sued his administration, asking a judge last week to order an end to what they call the unconstitutional excesses of his enforcement surge.
Walz called the federal investigation “a partisan distraction” that “does not seek justice.”
“Minnesotans are more concerned with safety and peace rather than with baseless legal tactics aimed at intimidating public servants standing shoulder to shoulder with their community,” his statement said.
Frey said in a statement that the federal government was trying “to intimidate local leaders for doing their jobs” and that “every American should be concerned.” “We shouldn’t live in a country where federal law enforcement is used to play politics or crack down on local voices they disagree with,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Andrew Goudsward and Costas Pitas; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Franklin Paul, Rod Nickel, Donna Bryson)
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