Slate Magazine69%
What We Can Learn From Trump’s Continued Obsession With Punishing Minnesota 58%
By Shirin Ali67%
6/25/2026, 2:45:00 AM
Topics: Law, Government
BS Summary: This article contains 30 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Attempt to Sell a Product or Service, and Appeal to Emotion, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 33.7% saturation with 484 hits. Analysis detected 3,742 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,438 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 54.4% and a BS Rank of 58% (9,354 of 21,887 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 57.30% of the article peer group.
It was only about five months ago that all eyes were on Minnesota, where horrific images revealed federal agents arresting a 5-year-old with an active asylum case, ripping a disabled woman out of her car as she tried to make her way to a doctor’s appointment, and killing Renee Good and Alex Pretti in broad daylight.
The Trump administration shamelessly tried to use Minnesota to set an example for other Democrat-led states: This is what you will face, too, should you choose not to cooperate with the president’s mass-deportation agenda.
The barrage of federal agents also came with criminal investigations, with the Justice Department issuing subpoenas to Gov.
Tim Walz, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and other top Minnesota officials, accusing them of impeding federal agents’ immigration enforcement duties.
Now, however, as the dust has settled and the administration’s legal challenges are making their way through the judiciary, the public is getting a closer look at just how feckless the Trump administration was in Minneapolis.
Think back to when federal agents first touched down in Minnesota back in January and began wreaking havoc on local communities.
Walz urged the public to “speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.”
Frey, speaking at a press conference, was less subtle.
“To ICE: Get the fuck out of Minneapolis.
We do not want you here.”
That immediately pissed off the White House.
President Donald Trump publicly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if the “corrupt politicians of Minnesota” did not comply with this immigration enforcement, and then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche accused Walz and Frey of “encouraging violence against law enforcement” and vowed to stop their “terrorism by whatever means necessary.”
By late January, just days after Walz and Frey filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, the Justice Department served subpoenas to Walz, Frey, St.
Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, the Ramsey County Board of Commissioners, and the Hennepin County Board of Commissioners.
The grand jury subpoenas were in pursuit of information related to federal immigration enforcement, including any policies, guidance, or suggestions issued that related to cooperating, or not, with federal authorities.
The Minnesota officials banded together to challenge the subpoenas, and on Monday, U.S.
District Judge Patrick Schiltz decisively ruled against the Trump administration.
Schiltz is no liberal; he’s a protégé of conservative legend Justice Antonin Scalia and was appointed to his post by Republican former President George W.
Bush.
Yet in no uncertain terms, he concluded there was “no doubt” that the Trump administration had taken a “blatantly unlawful and unethical use of the grand jury process” in order to harass its political opponents and coerce them into taking official action.
And when it was asked to defend itself, Schiltz said the Justice Department struggled to identify a single plausible explanation that would have justified its subpoenas.
It cited violations of federal statutes by members of the Minneapolis City Council and representatives of Ramsey County and Hennepin County, though Schiltz found that at least half of this activity is considered independent advocacy and involved people to whom the Justice Department did not even serve a subpoena.
What the federal government ultimately had to show for itself was an incriminating public record in which Trump has repeatedly threatened to withhold federal funding from sanctuary jurisdictions while publicly unleashing “vitriolic tirades” against local officials, including those in Minnesota.
On top of all this, the subpoenas were incredibly broad, seeking information from the state’s highest offices, but over materials that largely, if not entirely, relate to constitutionally protected conduct.
Schiltz noted the 10th Amendment’s “anti-commandeering rule” affords states autonomy from administering or enforcing federal regulatory programs.
It also forbids the federal government from coercing or retaliating against states or political subdivisions that decline to help the federal government enforce federal laws—exactly what the Trump administration has been doing to Minnesota and plenty of other local jurisdictions.
“On their face, therefore, the subpoenas are directed to investigating activity that is not only legal, but constitutionally protected from interference by the very federal government that issued the subpoenas,” Schiltz wrote.
It should come as no surprise that the Trump administration failed here, as it’s been facing devastating blows in courts across the country, where Republican- and Democrat-appointed judges are time and time again concluding the federal government is abusing its power, operating in bad faith, and retaliating against those who dare push back.
Consider the case of Paul Johnson, a Minnesota man who participated in anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests.
Two weeks after Good’s murder, he drove around his neighborhood honking his horn to alert his community to ICE’s presence.
He was following federal agents one day when suddenly they boxed him in with their vehicles, smashed his driver’s side window, punched him in the head, pepper-sprayed him directly in the face, then finally took him to the Hennepin County Medical Center.
Johnson was charged with assaulting federal officers.
According to a lawsuit Johnson filed earlier this month, he was confined to a hospital room, shackled to his bed for five straight days, and was not allowed to make any phone calls to family or to his lawyer.
Only after a nurse sneaked a phone to Johnson was he able to contact his wife.
As Johnson’s story has come to light in recent days, federal prosecutors suddenly moved to dismiss his charges, though they promised to investigate Johnson’s allegations.
Meanwhile, Johnson has been left with a permanent brain injury, damaged shoulder, and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In this week’s Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick discusses the Supreme Court’s latest decision in U.S. v.
Hemani with Mark Joseph Stern.
In holding that a marijuana user can’t be stripped of his right to bear arms because he sometimes uses cannabis, the court’s majority opinion reflects just how much the justices have shifted on the issue of marijuana over the last two decades.
Dahlia also speaks with David Gans, director at the Constitutional Accountability Center, to discuss how the Constitution’s guarantee clause is a “sleeping giant” that could offer a constitutional path to combating partisan and racial gerrymandering after the Louisiana v.
Callais decision.
Dahlia and Mark reunite for the Amicus bonus episode to discuss the remaining weeks of the Supreme Court’s term, including the U.S. v.
Hemani decision and Justice Clarence Thomas’ fractured concurrence, plus Hunter v.
U.S., a case that received a surprisingly good opinion that deals with the legality of plea bargains and appeal waivers.
The Supreme Court declared a man who follows the Rastafarian faith, which includes a promise not to cut his hair, does not have any legal recourse against correctional officers who shaved his head while he served a prison sentence in 2020.
Mark and Slate’s Alexis Romero explain how the Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision that the man could not sue the guards who maliciously violated his religious liberty because the guards had not “consented” to be sued for damages.
U.S. green-card holders can be denied entry into the country if a federal officer finds they have committed a crime, according to a new Supreme Court decision in Blanche v.
Lau.
Mark breaks down the 6–3 decision, written by Justice Clarence Thomas, which found that federal officers don’t need “clear and convincing evidence” that a green-card holder committed “a crime of moral turpitude” before denying them entry, detaining them, or putting them on immigration parole.
“An officer could simply invent an accusation of criminality, leaving the green-card holder trapped in a bureaucratic twilight zone for years before they have a chance to rebut the accusation at a hearing,” Mark writes.
The Supreme Court is embracing Justice Clarence Thomas’ conclusion that the Constitution is “colorblind,” and it’s already taking hold of the court.
When the high court refused to hear U.S. v.
Carter, a case involving racism in policing, Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito issued a dissent that argued the real racism afoot in this case was from a lower court and that the Constitution doesn’t permit “an individual to be treated differently based on a perception that members of” the same race “think alike.”
Mark explains the not-so-subtle play Alito and Thomas are going for here and the important history behind it.
While the Trump administration is putting on a strong face, it is a hollow facade that’s not just revealing weak legal arguments, but transparent abuses of the law that are being laughed out of court by the most conservative judges.
Thank you for reading Executive Dysfunction!
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Speakers
4speakers9.4%attributed speech1,303writer words
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100%flagged-word coverageMark Joseph Stern
35 attributed words26% of attributed speech88% writer coverage
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Analysis
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