The Justice Department has opened a formal judicial misconduct fight against seven Minnesota federal judges, arguing their New York Times interview crossed an ethical line and seeking to pull two of them off Department of Homeland Security immigration cases.
Attorney General Todd Blanche announced Wednesday that the Department filed the complaint with the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. The filing centers on a Sept. 17, 2026 New York Times article in which the judges discussed immigration litigation tied to enforcement in Minnesota.
At stake is more than media strategy. The Department wants an investigation and wants U.S. District Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim ordered off DHS immigration matters, saying their public comments create a reasonable doubt about impartiality in live disputes over arrests, detention, and removal.
Fox News Digital reported that the complaint names seven Minnesota federal judges who took part in the Times coverage. Schiltz and Tunheim are singled out for recusal from DHS immigration cases. Six other Minnesota federal judges also discussed the wave of immigration litigation in the same piece.
Blanche framed the issue as an ethics breach, not a policy disagreement. He said the judges spoke about cases, including matters that remain ongoing, in a way the Department sees as improper.
Blanche stated:
"These judges talked to the media, or at least The New York Times, about cases, some of which are ongoing, in a manner which the Department views as a clear violation of their ethical duties,"
Just The News described the same core demand in the Department’s filing: the judges should be ordered to recuse from DHS matters because the public can reasonably question their impartiality in immigration cases.
In the complaint language highlighted in that account, the Department put the request this way:
"These judges should be ordered to recuse from any matters involving DHS because the public reasonably questions their impartiality in cases involving immigration."
Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee, sat for a nearly 90-minute interview. The Department’s complaint cites remarks attributed to him describing the administration’s actions as threatening “the constitutional order” and “the rule of law.”
Tunheim, a Clinton appointee, is described as criticizing the administration’s immigration arrests. Full verbatim transcripts of every cited line were not laid out beyond those characterizations and short phrases in the available account.
The Times piece landed after a major enforcement push in the state. DHS said on Feb. 4 that authorities had made more than 4,000 arrests of illegal aliens in Minnesota under Operation Metro Surge.
That figure is the operational backdrop for the litigation the judges discussed. It is also the backdrop for the Department’s claim that public commentary on related disputes was not harmless color. It was, in the Department’s view, a signal of prejudgment.
The complaint sits with the Eighth Circuit’s judicial misconduct system. Chief Judge Steven Colloton, a Bush appointee, first decides whether to dismiss the complaint or refer it to a special committee. The Judicial Council then determines any corrective action.
The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts description carried in the reporting is blunt about what the process is not. It cannot be used to force automatic disqualification of a judge in a pending case. It also cannot be used as a simple vehicle to attack a judge’s legal rulings.
That means the Department can ask for recusal and investigation. It cannot, through this channel alone, seize control of case assignments. Whether Schiltz and Tunheim step aside from DHS immigration dockets remains a judicial-branch decision.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison rejected the ethics framing outright. He cast the filing as political retaliation for rulings connected to Operation Metro Surge.
Ellison said:
"This complaint has nothing to do with judicial ethics and everything to do with political punishment,"
He went further, tying the dispute to court orders during the enforcement surge and claiming the administration had failed to comply with large numbers of those orders at the time, while also noting that courts sometimes ruled for the government.
Ellison said:
"Blanche and Trump are trying to punish the judges who ruled against federal government actions during Operation Metro Surge, including the Administration’s undisputed non-compliance at the time with hundreds of court orders, even though sometimes the court ruled with the government."
That sets the public clash in plain terms. The Department says the judges spoke out of turn on matters still in play. Ellison says the Department is trying to intimidate a bench that blocked parts of the enforcement effort.
Chad Mizelle, chair of Litigation for the America First Policy Institute, argued the problem is deeper than one interview. Writing on X, he said the founding design insulated judges so they would exercise judgment rather than will.
Mizelle wrote that the present pattern is the reverse: a bench locked to political ideology. “When judges become politicians in a robe, the system starts to collapse,” he said.
He also reached for a concrete precedent. In 2001, Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson gave embargoed interviews, including to the Times, while handling United States v. Microsoft. Mizelle said the D.C. Circuit labeled that conduct “deliberate, repeated, egregious and flagrant” and removed Jackson from the case.
“That standard still applies,” Mizelle added. “What has changed is the willingness of sitting judges to ignore it.”
Breitbart reported further comments from Justice leadership as the Department defended the filing. Acting Deputy Attorney General Trent McCotter said judges who chase publicity erode trust in the courts.
McCotter’s line was direct:
"Judges who covet publicity undermine public confidence in the rule of law."
Blanche, in the same account, presented the move as compulsory rather than optional: “We have no choice but to act.” Breitbart also noted pushback that the judges’ statements complied with ethics rules, underscoring that the Eighth Circuit process will have to sort competing claims about publicity, pending matters, and appearance of bias.
Misconduct language can sound abstract. Recusal is concrete. If Schiltz and Tunheim remain on DHS immigration cases, they continue to rule on detention, release, and removal disputes while the Department argues their own words already told the public where they stand.
If they are removed from those matters, the Department gets a different draw of judges on a docket built around a large enforcement surge. That is why the filing pairs an ethics investigation request with a specific demand aimed at DHS cases.
The Department’s theory tracks the Code of Conduct concern described in the complaint narrative: public comment on ongoing matters, plus the appearance that issues likely to return to the courtroom have already been decided in the press.
Ellison’s theory is the mirror image. He says the real target is judicial resistance to federal enforcement choices, including fights over compliance with court orders during Operation Metro Surge.
Investigators and the circuit’s leadership will need to determine whether the published remarks were ordinary public explanation of court workload or prohibited commentary on pending and impending matters. They will need to determine whether the cited phrases, including Schiltz’s references to “the constitutional order” and “the rule of law,” show prejudgment of issues still before Minnesota federal courts.
They will also need to determine what remedy, if any, fits the record. Options inside the judicial conduct system are not the same thing as an automatic order kicking a judge off a live case. The Administrative Office guidance preserved in the reporting draws that boundary in clear terms.
Authorities have not publicly released the full complaint text, docket identifiers, or a complete roster of every unnamed judge beyond the count of seven and the two recusal targets. No public finding has been announced by Chief Judge Colloton on dismissal versus referral.
Operation Metro Surge is not a side note in this fight. DHS tied more than 4,000 arrests in Minnesota to that operation. The Times interview grew out of the litigation that followed. The misconduct complaint grew out of the interview.
For readers who care about immigration enforcement, the sequence matters. Street-level arrests become courtroom fights. Courtroom fights become national media narratives. National media narratives, when delivered by sitting judges on related disputes, become ethics fights about whether the robe still means neutrality.
The Department is now on record that neutrality was compromised in appearance, and perhaps in substance. Minnesota’s attorney general is on record that the ethics label is a weapon. The Eighth Circuit owns the next procedural move.
When judges try their cases in the newspaper while enforcement cases are still alive, the public is left to guess whether the courtroom is a forum of law or a stage for politics, and a republic cannot afford that guess for long.
