Harry Littman (2:37)

Welcome to Talking Feds. One on one deep dive discussions with national figures about the most fascinating and consequential issues defining our culture and shaping our lives. And I'm your host, Harry Littman.

Harry Littman (2:53)

All eyes continue to be on Minnesota, where officials have decried a federal invasion of the Twin Cities and filed suit to force ICE to stand down at the center of the MAELSTROM, Keith Ellison, Minnesota's Attorney General General Ellison has served as the state's AG since January 2019, previously represented Minnesota in Congress for 12 years and before that, Minnesota's House of Representatives. General Ellison, thank you Very much for joining us during what I'm sure are among your most tempestuous and demanding days in office.

Keith Ellison (3:34)

Well, let me tell you, we're up for it. We're organized, we're pushing back. We're protecting the state of Minnesota and democracy writ large. So, you know, yeah, I mean, this is clearly an interesting time, but I don't want anyone to doubt that we are here to stand up for what is right just and legal. And we are all about that. So no tears for us. We're strong. All the prayers, you got, all the good vibes and all the good wishes, we'll take them all. But no tears.

Harry Littman (4:05)

We're here, coming your way. All right. Well, you call it interesting, understated, I'd say. The governor calls it a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government. You called it a federal invasion of the Twin Cities that must stop and has made us less safe. It sounds like life during wartime of a sort that no state has experienced at the hands of the federal government, maybe since at least the Civil War. What's it like on the ground? What is happening now in Minnesota?

Keith Ellison (4:42)

Well, there has been a dramatic escalation in the sheer number of ICE and border control agents, like literally thousands. I mean, over 2,000 maybe. And they say there are more are coming. There's constant threats about the Insurrection Act. People who are driving, going about their daily business are being stopped, dragged out of their car, tear gassed. There was a family that was driving just on their regular business. They happened to be going through where ICE and was being confronted by some protesters as ICE was trying to harass people and do what they're doing. And this particular family was trying to drive through on their way to taking their kid to a basketball game. And I banged on their window and put one of these chemical irritant bombs under their car, which caused their infant to need CPR to survive. Right. And so, you know, in pulling people out of cars, out of houses, doing knocking doors and demanding people to show their papers, throwing, you know, it just. The overall effect is definitely hurting business. I was at a local restaurant which normally has a long and very interesting menu, and yet they're down to four items because they don't have enough people to be in the kitchen.

Harry Littman (6:13)

I mean, that really does sound like life during wartime. And just as an aside, you know, and I know, well, patently illegal to stop people like that willy nilly with no reasonable suspicion. And it just seems to be endemic with ice. All right, let me ask you this. This is the kind of war of words I think a little bit in the civil rights era. Whereas as kind of impacted and nasty as it was on the surface, there was some back channel communication, some effort for sanity to prevail. As far as, you know, General, is there any kind of communication between grownups going on from Minnesota to Washington?

Keith Ellison (6:58)

I really wish there was. I want to be public and say I invite that dialogue. But so far if there is, I haven't been party to it. And I'll tell you this, I can't name the names of the business people I've been talking to, but I have reached out to our business leaders who, some of whom are Democrats, some of whom are Republicans, most of whom run profit seeking corporations, you know, and I've said, look, if you got somebody in the White House who's listening, I mean, tell them that this is hurting business. If they care about business, it's hurting business. It's destroying economy and it's hurting, it's cutting businesses off from their employees, it's cutting businesses off from their customers. And I have not got anybody who said, yeah, I can do that. So if it's happening, I'm not privy to it. Can't speak to what the governor's doing or the senators. But I have heard no news that there's somebody on the other side of this divide who wants to have an adult conversation.

Harry Littman (8:06)

You mentioned the Insurrection act and they are flooding the zone even more. Are you concerned that it's designed to trigger more pushback from the citizens of Minnesota who've been overwhelmingly peaceful and construct a case of anecdotes for the Insurrection Act? And what are you telling the citizens of Minnesota to try to do to minimize that risk?

Keith Ellison (8:33)

Yeah, it is a policy of provocation, simple as that. I really believe, and I am this is something, I believe that they would love it if a ICE agent got hurt. And one way you know that there hasn't been any serious injuries of ICE agents is because if they were to have one, that would be their open door invitation for the Insurrection Act.

Harry Littman (8:59)

Yeah.

Keith Ellison (9:00)

And so they can't wait. Remember there was somebody who got, you know, their wallet taken or something like that which precipitated the invasion of D.C. if you recall, some remember the guy that the kid who.

Harry Littman (9:14)

No, exactly. That's what they did with 10 USA 1246. You know, here are three stories so we can't execute the lie that, you know, a kind of anecdotes plus deference to the administration. I think that that would be the game plan there, but, but we're not a.

Keith Ellison (9:32)

We're not a district, we're a state. And so there is a higher thresholds, but they're trying to find ways to marshal active duty troops here. But, you know, the people are too disciplined to go for that nonsense. People are protesting. We encourage people to exercise their First Amendment rights, but people have been disciplined and people have abided by the law. In the occasions where somebody has allowed their emotion to overrun their better judgment, those people have been arrested for things that, you know you're going to get arrested for, you know, and we counsel people to obey the law, but to operate within the law, but in a disciplined way. And this is a great tradition of our country, so there should be nothing wrong with it, but that's what we're saying. And I think that. I actually think that what Trump wants to do is somehow make an argument to suspend elections. That's what he wants to do because he knows his polling is in the toilet. He knows that when he loses the midterms, he's going to find him and his colleagues having to do some explaining in front of a Democratic Congress, and they want to forestall that. And I'm going to tell you this, here's something that I hope everybody listen to your show really embraces. Harry. These people are done with democracy. They don't like it, they don't want it. And when you think about this, ask yourself not what Thomas Jefferson would want, ask yourself what Elon Musk would want. Ask yourself what Larry Ellison would want, what Zuckerberg would want, what Bezos would want. These are the people telling Trump, here's what we want. And we want people to work for very cheap at our factories and do what we tell them to do. All these opinions people have, we don't want to hear it. And so that's what we're dealing with. That's the mentality of people we're dealing with. And so the idea that, oh, they wouldn't do that. Oh, no, we are talking about adult children who have a hell of a lot of money. And I'm not talking about buy a new house money. I'm talking about buy a company money, you know, I'm talking about buy Twitter money, you know, that's the kind of money they got. And so a childlike, selfish individual who doesn't have any empathy for anyone at all except for themselves. And Trump said his only limitation is his morality, which he has no morality. So that's the situation we're facing. The sooner we embrace that is who we're dealing with, the better. And I'd say, and I think the courts need to embrace that they should not confer good faith on behalf of this administration.

Harry Littman (12:28)

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Harry Littman (12:33)

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Harry Littman (13:38)

Wide ranging lawsuit talking in particular about Minnesota sovereign rights under the 10th Amendment. There's also a lawsuit that resulted in a preliminary injunction. But I just want to say policy of provocation I think puts it exactly right. What won't they do? There's no sign of anything they won't do. And the latest is as you've mentioned, officials have been encouraging Minnesotans to exercise their First Amendment rights peacefully. And we learn that subpoenas have been issued to the mayor of Minneapolis, the governor of Minnesota for no possible crime that I can see. But it's definitely an indication to me that there's no ethical, moral, not to mention legal boundary that will stop them.

Keith Ellison (14:28)

Yeah, they're proven that time and time again. But while they're announcing that the mayor and the governor are under investigation, do you know who's not under investigation?

Harry Littman (14:37)

Yes. Let's turn to that. Jonathan Ross. So the shooter in a killing of a Minnesota citizen that has roiled the country. And we have this stunning to me. You know, I was in the DoJ for a long time. I worked myself, the Rodney King case and others as U.S. attorney.

Keith Ellison (14:57)

Thank you.

Harry Littman (14:58)

I have never seen the I've seen the Department of Justice sometimes stand down and let the state go first here. They're not only not going going forward, they seem to be trying to hamstring Minnesota, not share with Minnesota, make it harder for Minnesota. So I did want to turn to that because if they continue in this path, it is really and it's not just Minnesotans, but it is the country. The, these are the kinds of cases that really, the country has skin in the game. So let's, let's talk about it. I know it's pretty early, but I'll start here. You've been on the, on the job nearly 20 years. You ever seen this kind of wagon circling and literal refusal to even cooperate with state authorities in an excessive force case?

Keith Ellison (15:59)

Never seen it. Never seen it. And so, I mean, just to lay it out a little bit, Harry, the doj, Civil rights has said they're not even investigating.

Harry Littman (16:10)

Well, let me say, yes, the head of doj, of course, the civil rights criminal section, four of them resigned over just that.

Harry Littman (16:18)

Resigned.

Harry Littman (16:19)

Right.

Keith Ellison (16:19)

So, look, let's just be candid. Not necessarily the doj, but any prosecutorial office in the country, if they really want to just, they could just say, yeah, we're looking into it, and then come out with something in a year and a half and put it in front of a grand jury, which no bills, it. No, they're just saying we're not, they're not even going through the trouble. They're just saying we're not doing it. Okay. You know, and more, I mean, the.

Harry Littman (16:48)

President and vice president have said, you know, they immediately championed. Ross, can I ask a couple practical questions that it does seem to me it all falls to Minnesota, and there are, you know, questions of your jurisdiction and Henneman County, D.A. moriarty's jurisdiction.

Keith Ellison (17:09)

Right.

Harry Littman (17:09)

The feds can put obstacles in your way and they seem to want to do them. I'm sure you're thinking now about how steep a road that that delivers. What are your overall plans for going forward? How's it kind of work as an investigative matter?

Keith Ellison (17:30)

I think we're going to investigate everything we can. And if the end, at the point where we think we've gathered everything we can, we're going to analyze it. That's not going to be long, but we're going to do that, and then we're going to make a decision regarding charging, and there'll either be charges or there won't be. I think it's important for the listeners of your program to know that there is no absolute immunity. As J.D. vance has inaccurately said, he's simply wrong. I know you're all shocked, but there's no such thing as that. Let me just, if you don't mind, Harry, I just want to remind everybody that of the Boston Massacre, we all went to grade school and we learned about Crispus Attucks and we learned about the Boston Massacre. And one thing to keep in mind is that the people of Boston did charge those agents of a faraway imperial government with crimes and tried them and gave them a fair trial. And one of the defense attorneys was John Adams. What is this? Why do I bring this up? Because I want everybody just to keep in mind that it is within the legal DNA of the United States of America that state courts are courts of plenary jurisdiction. It's the federal courts that are of limited jurisdiction, not us. We can take contracts, divorce, criminal justice, whatever can go through a state court. But the federal courts are. The federal government is a government of limited jurisdiction. They have to show that there is a federal nexus to their criminal justice system. But the states, we do all kinds of stuff. And so there's no legal bar. Now. There is a supremacy clause, limited immunity. And basically it says if a federal agent is doing their job and they're doing what's necessary and proper to do their job, then they might be able to be protected from state prosecution. But those are all questions of law and fact that will be decided according to.

Harry Littman (19:55)

That's exactly. And so necessary and proper. You know, if these had gone federally, as they should have, at least the investigation, we'd be asking the question, was Ross in reasonable fear of imminent deadly force or serious bodily injury? Here we'd be asking the question, if Minnesota goes forward, as you say, was this necessary and proper federal activity? They are pretty close, it seems to me. As you know, it's a mixed question of fact and law. But is he there doing things he needs to do because he's an immediate risk of death or. Or is he not sent? And it does seem to me that in this day and age, I'm contrasting it with Rodney King, with the wealth of videotape evidence and eyewitness evidence, making that basic case ought to be doable, even if harder. Can I just ask you, because we remember this a little merkly from the Floyd investigation, Minnesota homicide law, and that's what we'd be talking about, is a little bit idiosyncratic. What would be the basic, you know, couple charges that a. Any investigator would be looking at here, and what's the legal distinction between them?

Keith Ellison (21:17)

Yeah, I want to answer the question, Harry, but I want to say preliminarily, no one has made any decision about what charges, because we're still trying to investigate the case, of course, and we're not like the federal government. We actually investigate, then decide whether the charges are appropriate. But theoretically, you could be talking about second degree murder. Yeah, you could be talking about second degree murder, unintentional. That basically is you commit. You're committing a felony offense and engaging in foreseeably dangerous activity, but you unintentionally kill someone. That's what Derek Chauvin was convicted of. Nobody thought he went out to kill or wanted to kill George Floyd, but he was committing a felony offense of assault and killed George Floyd, which is why he was convicted of second degree unintentional. And then there's, you know, there's manslaughter, there's man too, which would be culpable negligence. And so, you know, there are at least three charges that, you know, again, having not come to a conclusion about the facts of the matter, but there's at least three that are, you know, one could contemplate. And again, you know, Jonathan Ross is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Harry Littman (22:32)

Yeah, no, I see that. I wrote this yesterday. I know there's a lot of people just assuming you're going to go for it, but prosecutors have to investigate first and then do charges have to be able to conclude that you can prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? These are difficult cases in general. A couple more questions about that and I'll let you go. As a practical matter, how are things working between, you know, you've got the experience and the personnel from the Floyd case and others? Moriarty basically has the presumed jurisdiction in Hennepin County. What's the kind of practical relationship at this investigative stage between you and her office?

Keith Ellison (23:24)

Yeah, Mary is the lead prosecutor and we've assigned. We've signed a document that we will work together on the case. So, you know, we'll work together. We're used to working together. We know their people, they know our people. And we're all very serious about our role as prosecutors. I have the highest regard for law enforcement. It does not bring me any joy to prosecute a police officer or any agent who's supposed to enforce any body of law, because if that happens, it means that somebody has failed absolutely in their oath and obligation. So it's not a good thing for anyone to have to prosecute someone in that role. But it is necessary because police officers and agents who risk their lives every single day should not have to share a profession with somebody who does not have their high regard for the standards that we have for law enforcement. So I just say those things just so you know that we're working together. Well, Mary and I went to law school together. She's super smart and we're happy to be supporting them. You're Right. About Minnesota law. Minnesota law presumes that crimes would be prosecuted by the prosecutor of the county in which they occurred. And yet, as an attorney general, we do a lot of prosecutions across the state when invited in by prosecutors who. And we're happy to help. And. But in this particular matter, sometimes county attorneys just hand us the case. Other times they ask us to partner with them. That's. We're doing the latter on this one.

Harry Littman (24:52)

Got it. Final question. You've emphasized, I think, commendably, no prejudgment, must be a full investigation. And, you know, things are developing every day with.

Keith Ellison (25:04)

Yeah.

Harry Littman (25:05)

With. On both sides and things that would be challenges to you and things that would be boons to you. You've also said, if I heard you right, General, that you'd want to do it quick. Let me ask you, has anything in this, in this sort of path from a infant investigation where a file is open to a decision on charges, has anything formal happened? And if not, when do you anticipate the process, the formal investigative process will begin?

Keith Ellison (25:40)

Well, we're already at the state level collecting and cataloging evidence that's happening right now. We're already gathering that. And, you know, it's really, you know, what we don't have and what we've been told they will not give us access to. And we're asking them to. To change their mind on that. And, you know, it is possible that a court might require them to share that information, particularly if the feds are not proceeding, which they say they're not. We're moving forward as expeditiously as we can. You as an old prosecutor knows it's really not a good idea to say exactly when, but as fast as we can, because we know people are very concerned about this matter and the public interest is. And everybody is served best by moving as quickly as you can. But I'm reluctant to put a time on anything because, as you said, we don't know what's coming up. We don't know what we're gonna find out, and we're gonna try to do our. As the federal government is not doing what they supposed to do, we are going to do what we supposed to do. And you know, there are ethical. There's a whole separate body of ethical responsibilities of prosecutors, and we take those things seriously. So we're not going to be openly declaring that the defendant is guilty. That's not professional. What we say is there's an investigation. What we say. If we arrive and I'm speaking not about this case. But any case, we say that, look, there's probable cause to support these charges. We believe we can prove them in court, but we're respectful of the defendant's rights and we're respectful of the victims. And in a criminal prosecution, this society is the victim, really. That's why the case is the state of Minnesota versus or the United States of America versus and because, yeah, it's an individual victim. People like Becca Good, but also the whole there's an injury to all of us when people break the laws this way.

Harry Littman (27:39)

If I would really make that point, this is really a case where the nation's interests and on the constitutional rule of law are at stake. General Keith Ellison, thank you so much for spending some time with us on a really demanding juncture for you. And however things come out, as you say, no, you haven't decided yet, but best of luck in this work that.

Harry Littman (28:03)

The eyes of the nation are once.

Harry Littman (28:05)

Again, Gary, I hope you don't mind.

Keith Ellison (28:07)

Me saying thank you for being a part of the free independent media protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. In an age of corporate consolidation of media, of an FCC that is punishing comedians for telling jokes, it is critically important, Dari, that you keep doing what you're doing. So all the best to you. And we're very, I mean, you know, you can ask me the tough question. I'm not asking for softballs, man. But I just still thank you for doing what you're doing.

Harry Littman (28:40)

We're doing our best there, too. But obviously you, Moriarty, the governor, are.

Harry Littman (28:45)

Doing best under it seems like almost wartime conditions.

Harry Littman (28:49)

It's the best way to put it.

Harry Littman (28:50)

Or your principle of provocation speak to you.

Harry Littman (28:54)

I hope as the investigation develops. And Godspeed to you.

Keith Ellison (29:00)

See you, Harry.

Harry Littman (29:03)

Thank you for tuning in to One.

Harry Littman (29:05)

On One, a weekly conversation series from Talking Feds. If you like what you've heard, please tell a friend to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever they get their podcasts. And please take a moment to rate and review the show. You can also subscribe to us on YouTube, where we are posting full episodes and daily updates on top legal stories. Check us out on substack harry litman.substack.com where we're posting two or three bulletins a week breaking down the various threats to constitutional norms and the rule of law. And Talking Fez has joined forces with the contrarian. I'm a founding contributor to this new media venture committed to reviving the diversity of opinion that feels increasingly rare in today's news landscape where legacy media seems to be tacking toward Trump for business reasons rather than editorial ones. Rest assured, we're still the same scrappy independent podcast you've come to know and trust just now, linked up with an ambitious and vital project designed for this pivotal moment in our nation's legal and political discourse. Find out more@Contrarian.com substack.com thanks for tuning in. And don't worry, as long as you need answers, the Feds will keep talking.

Harry Littman (30:32)

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Harry Littman (30:47)

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Harry Littman (31:00)

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Harry Littman (31:03)

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