A federal judge has thrown out Justice Department grand jury subpoenas targeting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) after ruling they were part of a revenge campaign by the Trump administration.

U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota Chief Judge Patrick Schiltz, who was appointed to the bench by President George W. Bush, tossed the subpoenas on Monday, calling them “blatantly unlawful.”

“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 ruling reads.

The document goes on: “The only question, then, is whether the challenged subpoenas were issued for one of these forbidden purposes. The Court has no doubt that they were.”

Walz and Frey — along with Attorney General Keith Ellison (D), St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her (D), and officials in Ramsey and Hennepin counties — were subpoenaed back in January as part of a Department of Justice obstruction probe related to immigration enforcement in the state.

In a statement posted to X after the judge’s ruling, Walz said it was “a victory for the rule of law and our democracy.”

“An independent judiciary is a pillar of our democracy,” Walz said. “It’s one reason why the U.S. has been that shining city on the hill for nearly 250 years.”

Frey told the Associated Press that the probe into him and the other officials was “never about justice, law, and order, but the absence of it,” adding, “Subpoenaing political opponents because they spoke on behalf of their constituents violates the core tenets of our democracy and human decency.”

The subpoenas were issued a week after President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if the “corrupt politicians of Minnesota” failed to “stop” widespread and ongoing ICE protests across the state.

“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at the time.

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