DOJ subpoenas Minnesota officials in ICE obstruction probe (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Attorney General Pam Bondi making an unexpected trip to Minnesota tonight, sending a warning to the state's top leaders.

[00:00:07] Speaker 2: Whether it's a public official, whether it's a law enforcement officer, no one is above the law in this state or in this country, and people will be held accountable.

[00:00:21] Speaker 1: Her warning coming on the same day that we learned the Justice Department is sent subpoenas to at least five more top officials across Minnesota. The subpoenas now includes the Governor Tim Walz, the Attorney General Keith Ellison, the Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye, and the Saint Paul Mayor Khalid Herr, who I will speak to in just a moment. All part of the DOJ probe into whether the officials obstructed ice efforts in the state Governor Walz, wasting no time firing back to the DOJ, saying quote, Minnesota will not be intimidated into silence and neither will I. Now the Saint Paul Mayor, her is out front and Mayor. I appreciate your time. So I guess just to start with this subpoena. You know, I don't know if you thought maybe you wouldn't be on that list, but here you are. You're now on it. What are you being asked for by the DOJ? Have they said anything about the possible charges that that you might be facing?

[00:01:11] Speaker 3: Well, and there's more that's going to be coming out about this subpoena, but for right now we know that Trump promised retribution and consistent with that we were served a subpoena today, but we remain committed to our residents and to our communities and neighbors and protecting them.

[00:01:25] Speaker 1: So Attorney General Pam Bondi was in your state today. Unexpected, incredibly rare, and she showed up today. Do you know why she did that today? Was there anything that you're hearing with your interpretation of this?

[00:01:39] Speaker 3: You know, I haven't heard specifically as to the reason why she's here, but it's pretty clear that this administration is sending people into intimidate us and we will not be intimidated as the governor said.

[00:01:49] Speaker 1: So one of the looming DOJ cases, such that we understand it specifically, seems to be about the protesters who rust into that church. That was in your city in Saint Paul on Sunday. They interrupted a service. They said they were there to protest a pastor there, who's also a local ICE official. The Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says, whatever it was, it was anti-Christian and it was a crime. Mayor, I'm curious how you see this. Do you think that some of those protesters may have gone beyond their First Amendment rights and going into a church like that and broke the law?

[00:02:25] Speaker 3: I will say that, you know, ICE has led the way in their charge of going onto school properties and detaining people from places that should be just as well kept sacred. And so, you know, we would have, we responded the exact same way we would have at any place of worship that our PD came in. And, you know, because this is an ongoing investigation, I can't comment more than that, but I would say we would have handled this in any other way in any other place of worship the same way.

[00:02:51] Speaker 1: So I understand what you're saying. Just to be clear, though, at the beginning, you were saying, well, they go into schools and sacred places. I mean, is this sort of a situation where if they're doing it, it's okay, then if protesters are doing it, as you see it?

[00:03:05] Speaker 3: I don't ever believe that it is okay for us to cross the line in which there are spaces in which people have certain rights and freedoms. But I will say that if this government wants us to obey rule of law, that they also need to follow that as well. And that they cannot expect residents who are feeling terrorized and sieged to be operating under any type of law under any different circumstances or any different rules than they are operating in.

[00:03:27] Speaker 1: So President Trump today was asked then about what ICE is doing in your state and other cities across the country, I guess to this point that you're making about when they have gone too far in what they're doing. Here's specifically what he said to that.

[00:03:40] Speaker 4: And you know, they're gonna make mistakes sometimes. ICE is gonna be too rough with somebody, or you know, they're dealing with rough people. Are they gonna make a mistake? Sometimes it can happen.

[00:03:53] Speaker 1: How do you hear that? I mean, it's a rare admission that he said. I mean, he did say they're gonna make a mistake, that sometimes it can happen. He has really not said that before.

[00:04:05] Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's interesting that he would say now that they would make a mistake when really just a couple of nights ago when ICE went in and forcibly took an American citizen out of his home in the East side of St. Paul, you know, the treatment that was given and then the statement made by his officers, the federal government, and saying that they were looking for individuals who were sex offenders who live in that house with that family, when that is just not true. There was no admission of a mistake that was being made. And so I think it is important for us to remember that the words that are coming out of our president's mouth does not match the actions that we are seeing on the streets.

[00:04:40] Speaker 1: I wanna ask you one question about that. DHS does tell CNN it was executing a search warrant at that home you're referring to, that they were looking for two men they say were convicted of sex crimes. Obviously, as you point out, this family denies anybody like that lives in the house. And then Tom Homan said today the homeowner was not cooperating with officers so that they detained him until they could confirm his identity. That's what they've told us at this point. I'm curious, Mayor, though, and I've been asked this question to try to understand, the individuals that they're talking about, the ones convicted of sex crimes, do you know anything that would contradict that, those other individuals? And if so, do you have any understanding as to why those individuals would not long ago have been deported?

[00:05:23] Speaker 3: You know, I can't assume what it is that ICE is doing or who they're looking for. I mean, I have to believe that they are carrying out the orders that they are supposed to. What I can tell you is that I have spoken firsthand with this family. No one in that home lives there with that kind of background and with that kind of criminal record. And that this family has been in this home for the last two years. And so what they are saying about who they were looking for just isn't true. And when they were offered, offered identification of the individual that they were detaining, they did not even entertain that. And so I think that the facts of what the family is experiencing and what they're reporting out are two very different things. And I will say that based on all of the cases that I have seen unfold here, I am more likely to believe my residents than what is being reported out of this federal government.

[00:06:11] Speaker 5: The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas in Minnesota, including to the office of Democratic Governor Tim Walz and the office of Democratic Mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey. It's part of the federal government's investigation into whether state and local officials have obstructed immigration enforcement efforts. Walz and Frey have been highly critical of the actions of federal immigration officers. And this afternoon, President Trump doubled down on his claim that many immigrants are committing a lot of crime in Minnesota.

[00:06:37] Speaker 4: I can show you some of the people, vicious, many of them murderers. These are all out of Minnesota, just Minnesota. Why wouldn't you want them removed? The reason is because these are insurrectionists that are doing this work. And you know, they're gonna make mistakes sometimes. ICE is gonna be too rough with somebody, or, you know, they're dealing with rough people.

[00:07:05] Speaker 5: Well, today, Greg Bovino, a top Border Patrol official in Minneapolis, defended the actions of the immigration officers, called out Walz and Frey directly.

[00:07:14] Speaker 6: Leaders like Tim Walz or Mayor Frey have relied on heated rhetoric and accusations that distract from the facts. And what we do is legal, ethical, and moral. Everything we do every day is legal, ethical, moral, well-grounded in law.

[00:07:34] Speaker 5: I wanna discuss the developments with Mary Moriarty, the Hennepin County attorney that county was subpoenaed by the Department of Justice. Ms. Moriarty, you hear what, first of all, what Greg Bovino has just said. Is it ethical, legal, and moral, what you have been seeing on the streets of Minneapolis and throughout Minnesota?

[00:07:54] Speaker 7: Absolutely not. In fact, our law enforcement partners, local law enforcement, had a press conference today. And one of the police chiefs was talking about one of his own police officers who was off duty. She's an officer of color. She's a citizen. She was stopped by ICE. She was actually boxed in. They were demanding to see her paperwork. She was trying to film him, and they yanked the phone out of her hand. So I don't know what's ethical, lawful about that. You've also seen video of probably a Hmong elderly man who was led out of his house in his boxer shorts and Crocs. It is right now about 10 degrees in Minneapolis. You've seen countless videos of people being dragged out of cars. And in fact, one of the things I think people really need to know is I don't know of a single parent who has not had to have a conversation with their children who are afraid that they are going to be taken by ICE or their parents are gonna be taken by ICE or a friend is going to be taken by ICE. And we're talking about kids who are five years old. People here are simply, yes.

[00:09:04] Speaker 5: Christy Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security has said in the past that ICE doesn't just go up to people and demand to see identification and proof of citizenship. That only happens if there's a criminal in the area, there's an operation against a criminal in the area, and someone happens to be in that area. And sure, they're gonna wanna see, you know, check who's around that criminal, to use her words. Is that what you are actually seeing? I mean, it certainly doesn't seem to be what we're seeing in the videos. Are all these videos, are there criminals, like just off camera, and that's why ICE feels emboldened? And that's what Noem is saying.

[00:09:46] Speaker 7: That's a lie. In fact, is she claiming that that police officer who was off duty was doing anything wrong when she got boxed in in her car? The video you were just playing was a woman who was yelling, I am disabled, I'm on my way to a doctor's appointment, and she got cut out of that car and hauled away, you can see in the video. By the way, the department's own statistics say that more than 50% of the people that they have arrested do not have a criminal record, do not. So we're talking about people who may not have status here, but they do not have criminal records. And so by their own statistics, they are not telling the truth. And right now, if you do not have white skin, you are in danger of being approached by ICE or pulled over or boxed in, and having ICE demand to see your proof of citizenship. It doesn't matter whether you're a citizen or not. Obviously, it doesn't matter if you're a police officer or a doctor or a nurse. We have businesses closing down because workers are afraid to go to work.