Attorney General Todd Blanche charged 10 lawful permanent residents with illegal voting in Minnesota elections, saying only eligible citizens should cast ballots.
A federal grand jury has indicted 10 lawful permanent residents accused of voting illegally or trying to do so in multiple Minnesota elections, Fox News reported after a Justice Department news conference in Washington.
Attorney General Todd Blanche said the defendants lied to election officials, claimed they were U.S. citizens, and registered to vote. Court records tie the alleged conduct to the 2022 and 2024 general elections and the state’s August 2026 primary. Each defendant was charged separately.
Blanche, who won Senate confirmation as attorney general in a tight vote, framed the cases as a basic duty of the Justice Department: keep the franchise limited to eligible American citizens.
Standing with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen, Blanche put the stakes in plain terms.
"Voter fraud erodes the public's trust in our electoral system, and it's vital to our democratic process that we do everything that we can to restore that trust,"
Blanche said. He added:
"The most basic way the Department of Justice can accomplish this restoration of trust is by working to make sure the only people voting in an election in the United States are American citizens who are eligible to vote."
The defendants are lawful permanent residents from Liberia, Lithuania, Ghana, Germany, Bosnia, Brazil, Canada, and South Africa. Their ages range from 43 to 78.
Named in the announcement were Bhator Konah Bryant, 61, of Liberia; Edvile Vaidoto Edmunds, 59, of Lithuania; Joshua Frederick Kofi Edzie, 63, of Ghana; Alan Barbu Kargbo, 48, of Liberia; Paul Kras, 78, of Germany; Fadil Rasim Ozegovic, 58, of Bosnia; Aparecido Donizetti Padovan, 62, of Brazil; Chris Adam Pettiquoi, 43, of Liberia; Christian Liam Schenk, 47, of Canada; and Hester Sophia Weihmann, 69, of South Africa.
Court records indicate most face accusations of illegal voting. Bryant appears to be the only one charged solely with falsely claiming citizenship in 2024 to register, not with casting a ballot. Kargbo is accused of voting illegally in the 2024 election; a Justice Department photo showed him with Homeland Security Investigations officers.
Federal law treats a false citizenship claim made to vote as a felony. That charge carries up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Voting by a noncitizen is a misdemeanor, with up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
None of the allegations have been proven at trial. The announcement describes charges and accusations, not convictions in these 10 cases.
Blanche told reporters the Justice Department has charged more than 90 people with voter fraud offenses since President Trump returned to office. That total includes 50 illegal immigrants charged in the past five weeks, he said.
Mullin put the broader enforcement picture this way: 10 voter fraud-related convictions so far, and more than 1,600 active investigations into similar conduct nationwide.
Blanche also voiced frustration with press coverage of the cases. He suggested the media keeps moving the goalposts on how many prosecutions would matter.
"I don't know what the number is that will work for you guys. Whether it's 106, maybe it's 120,"
he said. He added:
"At some point, it has to become meaningful to to the media."
That push fits a wider pattern for the department under Blanche, who previously, as acting attorney general, pledged DOJ resources against mail-order abortion pills and other priority fights. Election integrity is now getting the same public emphasis.
The same week’s legal backdrop included a Supreme Court decision allowing the administration to use the SAVE database for voter-eligibility checks while related litigation continues. States’ use of SAVE remains voluntary.
Federal law generally bars states from running systematic voter-roll purges within 90 days of a federal election. With midterms less than a month away at the time of the announcement, the immediate cleanup window was already tight. Mullin did not answer a reporter’s question about plans to use SAVE ahead of those races.
The practical point is straightforward. Citizenship checks only work if officials enforce them and prosecute people who lie to get on the rolls. Indictments after the fact do not erase ballots already cast. They do signal that green-card status is not a license to vote.
Blanche used the same podium to announce a separate Justice Department filing: a judicial misconduct complaint with the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. The complaint targets several Minnesota federal judges who spoke with The New York Times about cases the department said were still pending.
A Sept. 17 Times article centered on an interview with Judge Patrick J. Schiltz, a George W. Bush appointee on the federal district court in Minnesota. Schiltz told the paper ICE violated nearly 100 orders from that court during Operation Metro Surge, the large enforcement push that put hundreds of federal agents on Minneapolis streets in January 2026. He said the alleged violations likely stemmed from incompetence and staffing shortages at the Justice Department.
Blanche called the public comments an “obvious bias” and asked for more than an inquiry.
"We have asked the 8th Circuit to conduct an investigation, and in the meantime, we ask that these judges recuse themselves from every case involving DHS, either criminal or civil in nature, because of the obvious bias they have shown in this article,"
he said.
Schiltz answered Fox News directly. He said ethics experts backed his interview and pointed to a February advisory opinion from the Committee on Codes of Conduct. That opinion, he said, stressed that federal judges may speak and write on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence. “That is exactly what I did,” Schiltz said.
The complaint does not name every judge in the public readout beyond Schiltz’s central role in the Times piece. The department wants an 8th Circuit investigation and a blanket recusal from DHS criminal and civil matters while that process runs.
That institutional clash sits alongside the voting cases, not above them. One track is criminal enforcement against noncitizens accused of lying their way onto Minnesota’s voter rolls. The other is the Justice Department’s claim that sitting judges crossed an ethics line by talking to the press about pending enforcement fights.
Lawful permanent residents hold green cards. They may live and work in the United States. They may not vote in federal elections. The indictments allege these 10 people either cast ballots anyway or falsely claimed citizenship to register so they could.
Blanche’s confirmation path was itself a near-run thing, including a razor-thin floor vote after GOP defections and earlier committee drama. The charging decisions now coming out of Main Justice will define how that office uses its authority on election crimes.
Prosecutors still have to prove the cases. Defense lawyers will test the evidence. Judges will apply the statutes. The public gets something rarer than another press release about “concerns”: named defendants, specific elections, stated penalties, and an attorney general willing to say citizen-only voting is nonnegotiable.
Related Justice Department work under the same administration has included constitutional reviews on other fronts, from firearms rules for young adults to the election cases now rolling out in Minnesota. The through line is enforcement priorities that match the law on the books.
Minnesota’s elections are not a paperwork exercise. When permanent residents are accused of claiming citizenship they do not have, the remedy is investigation, indictment, and trial, not another round of denial that noncitizen voting never happens.
Secure elections start with a simple rule: citizens vote, and everyone else stays off the rolls. Blanche’s cases put that rule back in a courtroom where it belongs.
