A new report finds the U.S. Department of Homeland Security spied on Minnesota churches, unions, libraries and schools while investigating individuals and groups who opposed the federal government's immigration crackdown earlier this year. The information comes from a recent court filing.
That revelation coming Thursday from defense lawyers for the group known as the Minnesota 15, comprised of 15 so-called Antifa members charged in an alleged conspiracy to obstruct U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the Twin Cities.
“We know the truth, and we will not be intimidated," reads a statement from various community, labor and faith groups. "When self-serving politicians are losing, they lie and attempt political repression, trying to silence the voices of those who bravely stand up to them. Minnesotans will not be intimidated or divided by sham accusations or investigations of some of the countless groups and community members who organized, acted, and stood up together to protect their neighbors during Operation Metro Surge."
The court appeared to find criminal subpoenas were acts of political retaliation and observed that the Department of Justice “struggled - without success - to identify a single plausible investigatory justification for the subpoenas.”
“Initiating a criminal investigation in order to harass political opponents or to coerce them into taking official action-particularly official action that the federal government cannot directly require those political opponents to take-is a blatantly unlawful and unethical use the grand-jury process," the court wrote about the Department of Justice's actions. "The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes."
Their discovery revealed that Homeland Security investigators also secretly obtained financial records of a number of nonprofits and labor unions.
“The Trump administration’s extensive surveillance of Minnesotans for exercising their constitutionally protected, basic First Amendment rights to protest and hold their government accountable is appalling and alarming," Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement. “What it’s not is surprising. Trump has shown over and over he believes the federal government exists primarily to investigate, prosecute, and retaliate against his political enemies. America was founded on righteous protest and Trump’s retaliation against it is fundamentally anti-American. If Trump can't handle peaceful, constitutional protests, his agents shouldn't have abused their power, violated our rights, and shot two Minnesotans dead during Metro Surge.”
Federal officials so far haven't commented on the report.
