Attorney General Pam Bondi’s letter pressuring Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to change three policy positions may have given a federal judge a legal basis to end the surge of thousands of federal agents in that state.
“It concerns me that Attorney General Bondi’s letter cites three things that are the subject of pending litigation before this court,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez said during a roughly three-hour hearing, referring to the District of Minnesota.
"Is the executive trying to achieve a goal through force that it can't achieve through the Courts?" she asked.
During a live-stream following the hearing, Michael Popok and I unpacked why Bondi’s letter may have given Menendez the runway to issue relief that she otherwise would have been skeptical about her power to grant.
The Eighth Circuit recently paused Menendez’s more modest order blocking federal agents from violating the rights of protesters, and the judge appeared reluctant to order a far more sweeping injunction ending so-called Operation Metro Surge.
“I think it goes without saying that we’re in shockingly unusual times,” Menendez remarked at one point.
But she questioned whether that allowed her to be a “global keeper” of actions involving ICE in Minnesota.
Brian Carter, representing the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office, argued that Trump’s Justice Department is urging the surge for three policy goals: to push for the repeal of sanctuary laws, obtain voter data, and get records from food-assistance programs. He said that this “coercion” violates the anti-commandeering doctrine of the 10th Amendment, preventing the government from forcing state legislatures to pass laws or enforce federal priorities.
“It is personal animosity,” Carter said. “It is retribution.”
Quoting Trump’s social media post that Minnesota’s “day of retribution is here,” Carter exclaimed, “That’s crazy! How can that not violate the 10th Amendment?”
Menendez sharply questioned an attorney for the Justice Department about that proposition.
“Your position is that it doesn’t matter how clear” a “quid pro quo” may be, she said.
She ended the hearing without a ruling. She said writing an opinion may take some time — but not because it’s unimportant.
“It's because it's extremely important that I'm going to do everything in my power to get it right," the judge said.
In the video, Popok and I dive into the hearing, and Trump’s apparent retreat amid the backlash to his government’s operations in Minnesota.
