ICE Melts DOJ In Minneapolis
Kristi's goons are making life miserable for Pam's minions ... and everyone else.
Do you have a bar card and a death wish? Then slide into the DMs of any US Attorney in the country and tell ‘em you’ve got a MAGA hat and a tie and you’re ready to roll. Heck, you can hit up the dudes at Main Justice directly!
The Justice Department is hemorrhaging lawyers, and so a job which would previously have required an elite resume now requires nothing more than a JD and a pulse.
On Monday we noted that “Putting the nation’s prosecutorial apparatus in the hands of a bunch of meme-brained hacks has produced some spectacularly bad lawyering.” And then Tuesday a prosecutor in Minneapolis named Julie Le had a career-ending meltdown in which she all-but begged Judge Jerry Blackwell to hold her in contempt so she could go down to the cells and take a nap.
Le is a lawyer for ICE who was seconded to the Justice Department to help with the deluge of litigation resulting from the current assault on the Twin Cities. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in J.G.G. v. Trump, immigrants kidnapped off the street must file habeas corpus petitions to challenge their detention. And because of the ruling in Trump v. CASA, which severely curtailed “universal injunctions,” each detained immigrant must file his own petition.
The federal courts in Minnesota are currently drowning in virtually identical habeas cases. And by sheer no coincidence at all, the US Attorneys Office in Minnesota is drastically understaffed after several lawyers quit in disgust over the DOJ’s handling of the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
In a remarkable ruling last week, Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz castigated the Trump administration for its decision to “send thousands of agents to Minnesota to detain aliens without making any provision for dealing with the hundreds of habeas petitions and other lawsuits that were sure to result.” He also published a list of 96 court orders the government violated in January alone — just in this one federal district.
That’s the chaotic scene Le wandered into on January 5.
“I was put on this special mission to help with the US Attorney Office with all the habeas claims that they have received,” she told Judge Jerry Blackwell on Tuesday. “They are overwhelmed and they need help, so I, I have to say, stupidly enough to volunteer.” [Sic, and note: Ms. Le seems to speak English as a second language.]
Asked why the government ignored multiple orders to release the first petitioner, Le explained that the problem is three-fold. First, she came from immigration court, which is housed in DHS. And even though she has no idea how to practice law in US district court, she was assigned 88 cases in three weeks.
