The United States Justice Department has filed a misconduct complaint against seven federal judges in Minnesota who spoke publicly about the pressure their courts came under during President Donald TrumpâÂÂs immigration crackdown.
The judges spoke to The New York Times this month about dealing with a flood of cases during Operation Metro Surge, an immigration crackdown thatÃÂ led to thousands of arrests in the Minneapolis-St Paul area from December to February.
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The Justice Department says it crossed an ethical line by talking publicly about the cases.
Attorney General Todd Blanche accused the judges of showing âÂÂobvious biasâ against the Trump administration and called on them to step aside from any cases involving the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
âÂÂWhen we have a situation like we have now, where you have a judge, a couple of judges, just not only violating the canons in our view but also showing bias in what theyâÂÂre saying, we have no choice but to act,â Blanche told reporters.
The judges say they did nothing wrong. A spokesperson for MinnesotaâÂÂs federal court system said legal experts had found that the judges were âÂÂwell within the ethical rulesâ when they spoke to the newspaper.
The complaint is the latest in a series of clashes between the Trump administration and the judiciary, which has blocked some of the presidentâÂÂs policies and, in several cases, accused government lawyers of failing to follow court orders.
One of the judges named in the complaint, Patrick Schiltz, alleged that the government did not comply with nearly 100 court orders related to immigration enforcement in January alone.
In one ruling, he wrote that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) âÂÂis not a law unto itselfâÂÂ.
Schiltz was nominated by Republican President George W Bush and previously clerked for conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
He later told The New York Times that what happened in MinnesotaâÂÂs federal courts during the crackdown âÂÂcreated a grave threat to the rule of lawâÂÂ.
Schiltz also pointed to guidance issued by a federal judicial ethics panel in February, saying that judges can speak publicly about issues such as the rule of law and judicial independence.
âÂÂThat is exactly what I did,â he said.