“The evidence suggesting the Justice Department is an institution in crisis is increasingly difficult to avoid.”
The timeline of events isn’t exactly subtle. Two weeks ago, after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz announced that he was ending his bid for a third term, Donald Trump and his White House team said the end of the Democratic governor’s campaign wasn’t enough, and they wanted Walz to face a Justice Department investigation.
Less than a week later, The Wall Street Journal reported that the president had begun complaining privately about Attorney General Pam Bondi, “describing her as weak and an ineffective enforcer of his agenda,” at least in part because she hasn’t pursued his perceived political enemies as quickly as he’d prefer. The following day, the Journal published a follow-up report, adding that Trump also criticized some of his own U.S. attorneys at a White House event, “complaining they weren’t moving fast enough to prosecute his favored targets.”
Connecting the dots was rather straightforward: Team Trump wanted the Justice Department to go after Walz, and the president has been whining about the pace at which prosecutors were pursuing his domestic foes.
Take a wild guess what happened a few days after the Journal’s report reached the public. MS NOW reported:
The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, according to two people familiar with the matter, a significant escalation of President Donald Trump’s campaign of retribution against his critics and a move that is almost certain to further inflame tensions with the state.
The investigation focuses on allegations of obstructing federal immigration enforcement amid protests throughout Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer last week.
The governor and mayor join a growing list of Democrats facing Trump administration investigations, which now includes former President Joe Biden, former President Bill Clinton, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Sen. Adam Schiff of California, Rep. Eric Swalwell of California, Sen. Ellisa Slotkin of Michigan, Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, Rep. Jason Crow of Colorado, Rep. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire, Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania. [!]
By all accounts, the criminal inquiry in Minnesota is quite thin. As a Washington Post report summarized, Walz and Frey “have loudly disparaged ICE’s presence in the state and the way Trump and his administration have defended the officer and sidelined state officials in an investigation into the shooting. The subpoenas the Justice Department is preparing to send suggest the agency is looking at whether Walz’s and Frey’s public statements about the administration’s actions amount to illegal interference with law enforcement.”
In other words, the Justice Department has opened a criminal case against a governor and a mayor for criticizing alleged Trump administration abuses in ways the Trump administration doesn’t like.
Time will tell what, if anything, comes of prosecutors’ scrutiny of Walz and Frey, but in the meantime, the one person in Minnesota who need not worry about a Justice Department investigation is the ICE agent who shot and killed Good.
“There are over 1,000 shootings every year where law enforcement are put in danger by individuals, and they have to protect themselves, and they have a lawful right to do so,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on “Fox News Sunday.” “The Department of Justice doesn’t just stand up and investigate because some congressmen thinks we should, because some governor thinks that we should.”
Blanche, a former Trump defense attorney, added, “We investigate when it’s appropriate to investigate. And that is not the case here. It was not the case when it happened and is not the case today.”
In other words, Trump’s Justice Department won’t investigate an ICE agent who shot and killed an unarmed woman, but it will investigate a governor and mayor who condemned an ICE agent who shot and killed an unarmed woman — as well as the victim’s family. […]
President Trump’s decision to suspend naturalization ceremonies is leaving residents across the country in an unusual position, now stuck in limbo after they were on the verge of gaining U.S. citizenship. […]
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) suspended naturalization ceremonies for citizens of the 19 countries covered by the travel ban. It’s a list that’s since grown, as the president in December expanded the list to 39 countries.
In some cases, immigrants have already passed the citizenship test, only to be blocked from taking the oath that makes their naturalization official.
“People are just somewhat confused and concerned that, although they sort of went through the process, with the exception of the actual ceremony, that now at the eleventh hour, on the ninth inning they’re going to be disqualified and not allowed to be officially sworn in,” Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) said.
[…] The U.S. typically naturalizes about 800,000 new citizens per year, the bulk of which are from Mexico, India and the Philippines.
[…] “They are rightfully upset that the administration has stopped them — individuals who are already approved for citizenship — from taking their oath of allegiance to this country.” [Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said on the floor this week.]
[…] many prospective citizens have been in the U.S. for years if not decades and have been vetted at every turn.
[…] many of those who are about to take the oath have already progressed though various immigration statuses, taking years to gain their green card and then eventually seek citizenship.
[…] There have been reports of residents from countries that are not on the travel ban list having their appointments canceled, and because other migrants have been arrested after immigration court hearings, some are fearful to make appearances.
“Now I’ve got people who are saying to me, ‘Should I go to my naturalization ceremony? What if they grab me in my naturalization ceremony?’ It’s really unprecedented, and it’s attacking legal immigration. They’ve always said they want to attack undocumented immigrants, the so-called worst of the worst,” Jayapal [Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)] said.
“It’s Martin Luther King Day, Which Suddenly Seems Incredibly Relevant”
On this Martin Luther King Day holiday, thousands of federal agents are continuing to lay siege to Minneapolis in an operation that’s no longer only about pursuing Donald Trump’s ethnic cleansing program (though that’s definitely still aggressively underway). As Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pointed out, it has become a “campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota,” because they continue to stand up against the deportation campaign and the fascist invasion of the Twin Cities.
If you want to be terrified for America’s future, look at what Trump’s Homeland security thugs are doing in Minnesota.
But if you want to be inspired for America’s future, look at how ordinary Minnesotans refuse to be terrorized.
Minnesota, right now, is where Americans are bravely, resolutely, and boisterously living out King’s words in “Letter From Birmingham Jail”:
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Yes, you’ve heard those words so often they verge on cliché. But let’s spend a few minutes seeing them applied in the Twin Cities. (With a wind chill of -8 degrees F for today’s high, and another “Arctic blast” on the way at that! As this post goes online, the “feels like” wind chill is -28° F)
The most popular personal accessories in the Twin Cities are whistles and cell phones (personal body cams are another option). The owner of Minneapolis bookstore Comma says on Instagram that more people have been dropping by to pick up free whistles than to buy books […]
Following a trend that may have begun in Chicago, people are stocking Little Free Libraries with whistles and “Know Your Rights” pamphlets. If that isn’t a beautiful adaptation of an already nice thing into a tool for getting through crisis, I don’t know what is.
In another strategy borrowed from Portland and Chicago, nerds are sharing files to make hundreds of loud 3D-printed whistles for pennies apiece. Mischief, a Minneapolis toy store, is just one of many local small businesses making and distributing whistles […]
[…] In one of those double-edged Nice Things that are only necessary because of terrible things, the City of Minneapolis wants folks to know that if their car gets towed to an impound lot after ICE grabs them, the city will release the vehicles “to their owners or a representative” at no charge. [smiles] The implication that the owner may have been disappeared and deported is implicit in “or a representative,” which is fucking terrifying. But for families in a crisis who may depend on that car, the city has at least made clear it won’t add the insult of impound/towing fees to the injury of people being grabbed off the street.
Sometimes the comfort is as cold as the below-zero temperatures in our ongoing national horror.
You want Mutual Aid? How about the folks in the Twin Cities who are picking up and doing laundry for folks who have to stay home and can’t risk going to a laundromat, since ICE is lurking there, too. The People’s Laundry is primarily a mutual aid service to provide laundry help for people in poverty or who are without housing, but it’s expanded its services for people who are in hiding. [!]
[…] As in Portland, some of the protesters outside the federal building that ICE has turned into a detention center have chosen tomfoolery, to mock the violent thugs, because if there’s anything fascists hate, it’s being made ridiculous. And few things can better underline the ridiculousness of these thugs than this Fox News chyron (yes, it’s a screenshot from very real video.) [“Frozen Pickle Yells at ICE”, more social media posts, including one from Boise, Idaho]
But here’s a disturbing (and entirely predictable) escalation from DHS: They tolerated people in funny costumes making fun of them in Portland. In Minnesota, even dancing furries are being treated as enemies of the state.
Friday morning, DHS sent out a gang of thugs to tackle and rough up a protester dancing in a fox costume in front of the federal building. (Ignore the Bluesky poster’s erroneous caption saying it was the city police department; the goons’ body armor, necessary to protect them from mockery, is clearly marked “DHS”.) [Video]
[…] After the murder of Renee Good, we know the stakes of standing up to this regime. There will almost certainly be more killings. But it won’t work. Instead, people will keep showing up to chase ICE away, as they have again and again. Just look at how people seemingly materialized out of nowhere to confront the goons in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Lyn Lake last week, just days after Good was shot: [Video]
[…] Senator Reverend Raphael Warnock discussed the now deadly terror the government is unleashing in Minnesota, pointing out that the prospect of deadly violence didn’t deter the Civil Rights movement either. […]
And yes, he quoted the same line from “Birmingham Jail,” because our destinies are inextricably linked to our neighbors’.
Warnock also recounted a story that MLK aide Andrew Young told about a meeting in which King urged Lyndon Johnson to push for the Voting Rights Act. Johnson pointed out that he’d already expended a great deal of political capital on passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and thought it was a bit ungrateful of King to want another landmark bill less than a year later. He told MLK, “I don’t really have the power. You think I have more power than I have.”
King’s aides left the meeting downcast, but King, in Warnock’s telling, just shrugged his shoulders and told them, “Well, I guess if the president doesn’t have the power, we’re going to have to go get him some.” (Young’s version was phrased slightly differently but made the same point.)
That led to more demonstrations, including the attempted march from Selma to Montgomery which was cut short by Alabama state troopers beating marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965. Nationwide outrage helped build consensus that it was time for the VRA as well.
Warnock told Scott, “I think that’s the moment we’re in now. We’ve got to remind ourselves that it’s not about the people in power, it’s about the power that’s in the people.”
Goddamn right. We’re at a very dangerous place right now, and instead of LBJ in the White House, we have a far stupider version of Bull Connor. […]
One more King quote for you, from his 1958 “The Power of Nonviolence.” Just sub in “ethnic cleansing” for “segregation” here:
But there are some things within our social order to which I am proud to be maladjusted and to which I call upon you to be maladjusted. I never intend to adjust myself to segregation and discrimination. I never intend to adjust myself to mob rule. I never intend to adjust myself to the tragic effects of the methods of physical violence and to the tragic militarism. […]
God grant that we will be so maladjusted that we will be able to go out and change our world and our civilization.
We are at a truly terrifying moment in our history. But we have to bring this madness to an end. Find a protest, participate in a boycott, find opportunities to volunteer, and keep up the pressure on your electeds at every level.
“As federal agents swarm the Twin Cities, their presence has also grown in medical centers. Health care workers are pushing back.”
The arrival of thousands of federal immigration agents has altered life in Minneapolis and St. Paul in ways large and small, including in the corridors of hospitals serving the Twin Cities.
The sheer presence of the agents, sometimes in uniform, sometimes in plainclothes, has been enough to unnerve health care workers, who were already straining under conditions some have compared with those of the coronavirus pandemic.
[…] “Any medical center or hospital is supposed to be a place of healing,” said Dr. Brian Muthyala, a physician at the hospital systems Hennepin Healthcare and M Health Fairview. “It is a place where people go when they are at their most vulnerable, when they are hurt or scared or in need of care, and any presence that disrupts that environment is harmful.”
Officials with the Homeland Security Department said that they do not conduct operations in hospitals. “We go in if there is an active danger to public safety,” said Tricia McLaughlin, an agency spokeswoman. [Not true]
Health care workers, however, describe a different reality, saying agents have broken hospital protocol, refused to provide documentation and, in some cases, gotten into shouting matches with doctors and nurses.
[…] “Federal agents barging into patient care areas trying to question or detain patients — I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said Dr. LeFevere, who works at Regions Hospital, a few blocks from the State Capitol in St. Paul.
[…] Federal immigration officers, like all law enforcement agents, are allowed to enter hospitals, clinics and other medical institutions if they are accompanying a patient in their custody and cannot be restricted from accessing public areas. But hospital officials said they do not allow immigration officers into private spaces, such as patient rooms and care units, without judicial warrants and that security officers escort them and limit their searches to the terms of those warrants.
[…] One health official said that over the past week, agents had brought in about two dozen patients to M Health Fairview Southdale Hospital, which is the closest medical center to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building […]
Two nurses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss patient care, described witnessing a confrontation between health care workers and federal agents last weekend that devolved into a screaming match in a hallway at Hennepin Healthcare System in Minneapolis.
A crowd of nurses and physicians, many in scrubs and medical gear, tried to stop the agents from shackling a severely injured man to his bedside, they said. […]
Hennepin County lawyers have filed a legal petition on behalf of the patient contesting his confinement by ICE […]
The patient remains in the hospital, and agents have been rotating in and out of the facility as they keep watch at his side, according to three health care workers who asked not to be named because they did not have permission from their employer to speak on the issue.
About 10 miles to the east, in St. Paul, Dr. LeFevere said there had been at least two instances at Regions Hospital when federal agents entered the emergency department, once through the ambulance bay and another through a back entrance reserved for law enforcement.
In both cases, it appeared that the agents had been trailing people with whom they had interacted with on the streets, but the individuals were not in their custody, Dr. LeFevere said. The agents became argumentative when health care workers requested to see their warrants, but they eventually left the hospital, he said.
[…] Jeffrey Lunde, who serves as a Hennepin County commissioner and chairman of the hospital board of the Hennepin Healthcare System, said there were recent instances at Hennepin Healthcare in which hospital staff had asked federal agents to produce documentation as to why they were present in a private area or in a patient’s private room. Agents were not able to provide it.
[…] Nurses, doctors and other health care professionals across the Twin Cities had prepared for precisely such situations as they watched immigration crackdowns unfold in other cities over the past six months.
Jamey Sharp, a health care worker who is also a community organizer with the nonprofit Unidos MN, said his organization had trained more than 300 health care workers since March on patient privacy and knowing their rights. The group, which advocates social justice, said it had also helped to connect health care workers through Signal chat groups in hopes of tracking the activity of federal agents inside their facilities and ensure that rules were being followed.
[…] Aisha Gomez, a Democratic state lawmaker who represents parts of South Minneapolis, said she is worried about deleterious effect.
“I am deeply concerned about the chilling effect it is having on people seeking the care,” Ms. Gomez said.
“Denmark says its troops could stay in Greenland for one to two years.”
With Donald Trump continuing to ramp up pressure in his bid to annex Greenland, Denmark on Monday is boosting its military presence on the Arctic island, according to local press reports.
A “substantial contribution” of Danish combat soldiers is expected to arrive in Kangerlussuaq, the location of Greenland’s main international airport, on Monday evening […]
Denmark’s top military commander in the Arctic, Maj. Gen. Søren Andersen, said that about 100 Danish soldiers have already arrived in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital, and a similar number in Kangerlussuaq, in western Greenland. The soldiers are due to take part in the Arctic Endurance training exercise. Andersen said last week that the deployment is a response to Russian threats and not to Trump. [That last bit sounds like a diplomatic or political spin.]
Copenhagen on Monday asked for a NATO mission to Greenland, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said, […]
Lund Poulsen slammed Trump’s threats against Greenland as “really, really hurtful,” but warned the alliance still can’t afford to sever ties with Washington.
“If the Americans withdraw from NATO tomorrow, we will have a huge challenge in fending for ourselves,” he said, adding: “it also gives us reason to do more on the European side.”
[…] “We will continue the mission for a year, maybe two, with the cooperation of foreign soldiers. We are trying to establish a schedule for deploying troops to Greenland in 2026 and the following year, so yes, it is a long-term mission,” Andersen told Le Monde.
In the past days, the European military officers participated to a reconnaissance mission and “assessed training opportunities throughout the year and are planning to return in March with different capabilities,” Andersen said.
The deployments came amid intensifying pressure from Trump, who wants to annex the Arctic island, a semi-autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. He has not ruled out using military force to do so.
Trump denounced the move by allied countries, warning: “These Countries, who are playing this very dangerous game, have put a level of risk in play that is not tenable or sustainable.”
Trump argues that Denmark hasn’t done enough to protect Greenland from a possible attack from Russia or China, joking that Copenhagen only has two dog sleds to defend the island. In reality, Denmark said last year it would boost defense spending for Greenland by 27.4 billion krone (€3.7 billion) for naval vessels, patrol aircraft, drones and surveillance radars.
Despite Trump’s contention that Chinese and Russian vessels are “all over the place” near Greenland, there is no evidence that is the case. [Trump lied, as usual.]
Denmark announced last week it was boosting its presence on Greenland and that the exercise could include guarding critical infrastructure, providing assistance to local authorities, receiving allied troops, deploying fighter aircraft in and around Greenland and conducting naval operations.
Good news concerning Trump losing, again, in the courts:
A federal judge on Jan. 9 became the third one to block key provisions of President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at revising election rules nationwide, ruling that the Constitution gives states and Congress —not the president— the authority to exercise power over elections.
The administration signaled it is likely to appeal the decision, the latest blow to Trump’s agenda on elections.
His March executive order sought to require proof of citizenship on the federal voter registration form, mostly ban the use of machine-readable codes when tallying ballots, and prohibit the counting of ballots postmarked Election Day but received afterwards.
The administration has appealed two earlier rulings in other cases against the executive order. The cases could ultimately reach the U.S. Supreme Court, but election law experts told Votebeat the president faces long odds. […]
More at the link. This fight, and similar court fights, are ongoing.
[…] The White House has said the president is planning a second executive order on elections, though it’s unclear what will be in it, and federal court rulings so far show the approach has limitations. […]
Trump’s DOJ to investigate Walz and Frey, but not ICE agent who shot Renee Good
“The evidence suggesting the Justice Department is an institution in crisis is increasingly difficult to avoid.”
For the convenience of readers, here are some links back to the previous set of 500 comments on The Infinite Thread.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290501
After unveiling a pitiful health care ‘plan,’ Trump struggles to explain its merits
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290499
Reagan-appointed judge slams ‘unconstitutional conspiracy,’ calls Trump an ‘authoritarian’
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290477
The Kremlin has announced that Vladimir Putin has been invited to join Donald Trump’s “board of peace”, set up last week with the intention that it would oversee a ceasefire in Gaza.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290477
“Donald Trump links threats to seize Greenland to Nobel prize snub in letter.”
Additional links back to the previous set of comments on The Infinite Thread:
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290446
ICE agents ate meal at a Minnesota Mexican restaurant—then arrested the staff who worked there
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290441
“This is such a cool illustration of how the Mercator map distorts the size of Greenland, which looks as big as the whole continent of Africa on that map but is actually the size of Mexico. [Video]”
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290427
Jayden Scott, the 23-year-old MAGA hero who went viral for taunting protesters at the site where ICE shot and killed a woman, is now facing a warrant threat after failing to report for jail.
https://proxy.freethought.online/pharyngula/2025/12/30/infinite-thread-xxxviii/comment-page-2/#comment-2290414
EU explores €93B Trump tariff retaliation over Greenland threats
Link
Wales becomes the first country to sanction politicians who lie.
.https://www.facebook.com/share/1aaYkMcPts/
https://www.wonkette.com/p/its-martin-luther-king-day-which
“It’s Martin Luther King Day, Which Suddenly Seems Incredibly Relevant”
New York Times link
“Inside Minnesota Hospitals, ICE Agents Unnerve Staff”
“As federal agents swarm the Twin Cities, their presence has also grown in medical centers. Health care workers are pushing back.”
Denmark sends more troops to Greenland
“Denmark says its troops could stay in Greenland for one to two years.”
Good news concerning Trump losing, again, in the courts:
Link
More at the link. This fight, and similar court fights, are ongoing.