DOJ demands judges be removed from ICE cases over media interviews

I want to get to another headline today, and that involves U.S. attorneys in Minnesota, Operation Metro Surge, and what U.S. attorneys said in a New York Times article about a month ago that has led to the Justice Department now trying to get a couple of them removed from a couple of immigration cases, and Paul Bloom's been following this. And you've talked to some of these attorneys as well, or judges, I should say, as well, and about Operation Metro Surge. Now, this is a case where the Justice Department says what these Minnesota federal judges said, that they believe that they are not unbiased in this case. Is that essentially it? Yeah, that they no longer can be impartial, that they sort of pierced their impartiality by some of the comments they made, specifically in an interview with the New York Times last month. Now we had spoken with then Chief Judge Patrick Schultz earlier this year. We'll get this down from him just to give you a sense of kind, our interview wasn't cited in any of the filings. But yeah, the Department of Justice believes that these judges and some of their quotes to the New York Times, Judge Tunheim commenting on, not Not Chief Judge, but John Tunheim, longtime veteran judge, commenting basically that in his opinion, in essence, I'm totally paraphrasing here. But the administration wasn't necessarily arresting the worst of the worst. He was seeing people come into his courtroom on habeas petitions. This is the quote from the New York Times that they were not, quote, arresting, in my view, people who were dangerous criminals on the street. That's what Tunheim said. Right. And Schultz's quote is talking about the disregarding of court orders, almost likening the administration to some countries like Russia, China, and North Korea. And the Department of Justice feels like they went too far. Judges do have some leeway to talk about things about the justice system, broadly about laws and the like, and their role on the bench. But to get into specifics, to comment on parties in front of them, that is not allowed. they felt these New York Times quotes went too far. So judges say no, this went within the leeway of what we can talk about, about the criminal justice system from a federal judge viewpoint. But the Justice Department says no, they crossed the line. So that's the debate, where's the line, where did they cross it? The judges, we sat with Patrick Schultz, I know you know John Tunheim, he often will at least meet with reporters or we see him at public events, been around for a really long time. Both guys, in my opinion, probably understand where the rails are on what they can and can't do and stay publicly. Who wants to throw away a lofty judicial career, I mean, and you think of Judge Schultz who is appointed by a Republican and has conservative roots. So it's interesting that the DOJ is targeting him. But basically now there are two separate immigration cases that have come under fire that are ongoing now in the court system. One is a denaturalization. We have a Somali-American man who took the oath, became a citizen years ago, probably back when you were covering the Department of Justice. He ended up getting caught up. He went to fight for al-Shabaab in Somalia and came back and was caught up in some of the trials. He went to prison for three years. The government is trying to denaturalize him, so very much an immigration case. That's in front of Judge Schiltz. And then Judge Tunheim currently has a case, and I'm going to forget what this, oh, it's about an illegal voting, a green card holder who's not a citizen who apparently cast ballots and the government is prosecuting him criminally. But again, immigration violations to the DOJ is asking, I mean, they're basically asking the judges to recuse themselves because that's the process that it goes to. But there are two filings now on the record asking Judge Schiltz to recuse himself and Judge Tunheim to recuse himself from those two court cases. Okay, and you had interviewed again Judge Schultz earlier this year related to Operation Metro Surge, etc. And you have a bit of that interview. How does that, that we're going to play, how does that relate to this potentially? Again, I mean, he's not comparing any administration to North Korea in this. It's not quotes that were cited in these filings. But I do think it's important for our viewers to at least listen in to see where the judge was going with what he felt comfortable talking about. Because a lot of people went through a lot with Operation Metro Surge. And Judge Schultz chief judge at the time at this unprecedented legal moment in really American history, but certainly in Minnesota District Court history. He has something to say about it. So let's take a listen. We can kind of talk about it on the backside of it. That was one of the most difficult things about this for us judges is that, as I said, they were literally these petitions were being filed from early morning till late at night. And if I went to a movie for two hours or just wasn't near my iPhone for two hours, that could be the difference between somebody being put on a plane and sent to Texas or somewhere else and someone being ordered, released and returning to their family that night. So there was kind of an emotional toll as well as just the work and the time. Anytime you were doing something that was not work, you kind of felt guilty like you should be working because somebody might really be harmed by the fact that I went to the movie or I went out to dinner with friends. Yeah, so he's really talking in there about his personal kind of difficulty in just the caseload essentially during Operation Metro Surge. And he said at the end though, if you were looking for something to pick at from the other side, you talked about harm that could be done to somebody in custody. Well, the other side could say, what kind of harm? We have an illegal immigrant in this country that the ICE is trying to deport. They're moving them through the system, getting them out of town and the whole habeas battle. So again, that's not one of the quotes that's under question here in this courtroom fight between the DOJ and the federal bench, but it is escalating tensions. And that is just sort of a commentary that we heard from Shultz earlier this year when he was chief judge. So to wrap this up, then, where does this go from here? The Department of Justice looking to these two judges to recuse themselves, what's next? Well, in one of the cases where I can see it in the court filings, because no one's commenting just on what's in the court, Judge Shultz has called a hearing. So these parties are going to come before him, and the government will make its argument in person orally about why the judge should recuse himself from hearing that specific case in the denaturalization. So that's just one element. And I did get a quote this morning from the gentleman who is the government is seeking to denaturalize. Here's his comment to me. The contrived and baseless attack on Judge Shultz is just cover intended to distract from the case's utter lack of merit. The only ethical violation is the Department of Justice's filing of a frivolous lawsuit against Mr. Ahmed, his client. This is Salah Osman Ahmed. Again, that's a defense attorney, but he opposes the idea of removing Judge Shultz from this case. Again, it's a denaturalization case. But yeah, it will go before the judge. Now, what happens if Judge Schiltz says you didn't meet your burden and it goes up to the 8th Circuit? I have no idea where it goes from here. Once again, we're in territory that- Well, it's interesting, yeah, when the DOJ is going in front of a judge to argue to that judge why that judge should remove himself. I mean, that's a unique situation, certainly. And we saw a previous motion, I'm not gonna remember the exact details, but with Judge Jeffrey Bryan earlier this year that didn't get into court. It was just in written arguments, but he was married to the solicitor general of the state of Minnesota. And Jeffrey Bryan had been very critical and had gone kind of toe to toe with U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen and the DOJ sought to remove Judge Bryan from an immigration related case. He said he wasn't removing himself and not sure where that case went, but we have seen that in this jurisdiction.