The Justice Department is sending prosecutors from Midwestern states to help the Minnesota U.S. attorney’s office as it grapples with a severe shortage of staff amid a surge of federal immigration officers, according to three people familiar with the personnel moves.
Top Justice Department officials made the urgent requests to U.S. attorneys in more than a half-dozen states over the weekend as the Trump administration prepares for the possibility of filing charges against state officials and more protesters.
Officials asked the U.S. attorneys to send prosecutors for stints in the Minnesota federal prosecutor’s office that could last a couple of weeks each, according to the people familiar with the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss plans that had not yet been made public. The prosecutors could help with the existing caseload in Minnesota or work on fresh cases.
“If state leaders refuse to act responsibly to prevent lawlessness, this Department of Justice will remain mobilized to prosecute federal crimes and ensure that the rule of law prevails,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement.
The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Justice Department had launched investigations into several high-level Democratic state and local officials, preparing to send subpoenas to Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. The investigation is examining whether the Democratic leaders are impeding federal law enforcement officers — an unusual probe into elected officials.
Subpoenas in connection with that investigation were served Tuesday on Frey, Walz, state Attorney General Keith Ellison, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Ramsey County Attorney John Choi and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.
The subpoena issued to Frey asks the mayor to appear before a grand jury on Feb. 3, according to a copy reviewed by The Post. Among the documents it asks him to bring are “all records and communications relating to compliance or lack of compliance with immigration detainers in the State of Minnesota.”
“When the federal government weaponizes its power to try to intimidate local leaders for doing their jobs, every American should be concerned,” Frey said in a statement.
The need to temporarily send prosecutors to Minnesota highlights the extreme staffing shortages the Justice Department is experiencing as it helps execute some of the most controversial aspects of President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation efforts.
Following the fatal shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by an immigration officer this month, about 10 federal prosecutors in the state’s U.S. attorney’s office quit amid turmoil of the handling of the investigation. The office, which handles all federal prosecutions in the state, is now down to roughly half its full staffing level of approximately 70 lawyers, according to two people familiar with the matter. Some prosecutors resigned at the end of the Biden administration and have not been replaced; others left earlier in the first year of Trump’s new term.
U.S. attorney offices across the country, including in Virginia, D.C. and New York, have seen similar spates of departures after political appointees in the Justice Department have pursued controversial cases.
In Minnesota, the Justice Department has come under fire over its handling of the shooting of Renée Good by Jonathan Ross, an ICE officer. Justice Department officials have refused calls to examine the shooting, saying no basis exists to criminally investigate whether the officer used excessive force. Instead, they have pushed for an investigation into Good’s partner, who was protesting ICE officers at the time of the shooting. Multiple prosecutors quit after the requests to investigate her, The Post reported last week.
Justice Department officials have also suggested on social media that they are investigating journalist Don Lemon after he covered an ICE protest in a Minneapolis church.
“A house of worship is not a public forum for your protest!” Harmeet K. Dhillon, who heads the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, posted on social media over the weekend. “It is a space protected from exactly such acts by federal criminal and civil laws! Nor does the First Amendment protect your pseudo journalism of disrupting a prayer service. You are on notice!”
The U.S. attorneys being enlisted to send prosecutors include the districts of South Dakota, North Dakota, Eastern Michigan, Nebraska, Eastern Wisconsin and Western Wisconsin.
While top Justice Department officials have vowed that protesters interfering with ICE’s efforts will be prosecuted, the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota has so far filed only a handful of cases related to the surge in immigration enforcement that began there last month.
Since December, prosecutors have charged seven people with assaulting or impeding federal agents, including two cases filed since the shooting of Good on Jan. 7, according to a review of public court documents.
Felony immigration-related charges have been filed against another four people, though some of those charges have since been withdrawn. By contrast, ICE surges in Los Angeles and Chicago last year drew demonstrations and a significant number of protest-related prosecutions.
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