Top DOJ official asks judges to step aside from immigration cases

Washington — A top official at the Justice Department is attempting to disqualify two Minnesota federal judges from a pair of cases, claiming comments they made to the New York Times about the Trump administration's handling of immigration cases in the state call their impartiality into question.The motions, filed against Judges Patrick Schiltz and John Tunheim, are an escalation of the Justice Department's ongoing campaign against judges who it claims have treated the Trump administration unfairly. Both of the requests were made by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, the third-highest-ranking official at the Justice Department.Woodward also moved over the weekend to disqualify U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes, who sits on the trial court in Washington, D.C., from overseeing a case involving President Trump's efforts to overhaul a historic public golf course in the nation's capital.

Reyes rejected the Justice Department's effort Sunday and accused the Justice Department of weaponizing "selective quotations to bring a baseless recusal motion."The requests seeking the recusals of Schiltz and Tunheim came in two separate immigration cases and were each filed by Woodward on Tuesday. In the case overseen by Schiltz, the Trump administration is seeking to strip a Minnesota man of his U.S. citizenship. In the second case, assigned to Tunheim, a South African national faces two charges of illegally voting in the 2024 election.