MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation of the prosecutor’s office in Minnesota’s most populous county after its leader directed her staff to consider racial disparities as one factor when negotiating plea deals.
Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican lawyer who's the new director of the agency's Civil Rights Division, announced the investigation in a social media post Saturday night.
Dhillon posted a letter from Attorney General Pam Bondi to Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty, dated Friday. It said the investigation would focus on whether Moriarty's office “engages in the illegal consideration of race in its prosecutorial decision-making.”
The letter, released to The Associated Press by the Justice Department on Monday, said the investigation was triggered by a new policy adopted by the county attorney that has come under conservative fire in recent weeks.
That policy, which was leaked to local media last month, says racial disparities harm the community, so prosecutors should consider the “whole person, including their racial identity and age,” as part of their overall analysis.
Moriarty's office got the Justice Department letter via email on Monday, the county attorney's spokesperson, Daniel Borgertpoepping, said in a statement.
“Our office will cooperate with any resulting investigation and we’re fully confident our policy complies with the law,” he said.
Moriarty, a former public defender, was elected in 2022 as the Minneapolis area and the country were still reeling from the death of George Floyd, a Black man, under the knee of a white officer. She promised to make police more accountable and change the culture of a prosecutors' office that she believed had long overemphasized punishment without addressing the root causes of crime.
The federal inquiry will be a “pattern or practice” investigation, Bondi's letter said. That's the same kind of probe that the Justice Department conducted of the Minneapolis Police Department following the murder of Floyd nearly five years ago.
That process led to an agreement in January between the Biden administration's Justice Department and the city on a consent decree to mandate changes to the police department's training and use-of-force policies that are meant to reduce racial disparities in policing. However, the agreement still requires approval by a federal judge.
After taking office later in January, President Donald Trump’s administration froze civil rights litigation and suggested it may reconsider the Minneapolis agreement and a similar one with Louisville, Kentucky.
Trump took a step further last month when he signed an executive order directing the attorney general to review all ongoing federal consent decrees with law enforcement agencies and “modify, rescind, or move to conclude such measures that unduly impede the performance of law enforcement functions.”
The Justice Department had already asked the court to pause its decision on the Minneapolis agreement while Dhillon reviews the matter. U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson has given the agency until May 21. Louisville's consent decree is similarly on hold.
Attorney General Pam Bondi tours a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) research laboratory on Tuesday, April 29, 2025, in Northern Virginia. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - Harmeet Dhillon walks through a hallway after talking to reporters at the Republican National Committee winter meeting in Dana Point, Calif., Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
FILE - Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty explains her progressive approach to prosecutions, June 19, 2024, at her office in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Mark Vancleave, File)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”
Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.
“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”
He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”
Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.
More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.
With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.
Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.
In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.
Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”
Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.
“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.
The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.
Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.
In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)
In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)
