Walz, decided that it was expedient to try to appease the protesters by throwing the elected Hennepin county DA under the bus and to appoint Kieth Ellison in his place.
While I think that it's a tacit acknowledgement that the current county and state prosecutor system is corrupt and that Walz, Ellison, and the County commissioners have failed to either discipline or replace Mike Freeman who has been the Hennepin County DA for 23 of the last 29 years. After being reelectd by an "wide margin in 2006".
On a purely political level, the optics of an apparently popular and well respected DA being yanked look like the governor overturning the will of the voters. Having said that, I'd be willing to bet that the vast majority of the Hennepin county residents protesting him and his corruption have voted for him multiple times. One wonders why a people being oppressed by a particular elected official would continue to vote for him. But that's neither here nor there.
Ellison on the other hand, has (along with his son) come out supporting or appearing to support ANTIFA, which doesn't seem like a particularly good look, but who knows.
My personal experience with Ellison a fairly extensive audience with him in his DC congressional office, left me unimpressed. But again, that's neither here nor there. As is Ellison's checkered legal history. He's had documented problems with campaign finance irregularities, failure to pay traffic tickets, and failure to pay income taxes. In addition to the highly publicized domestic abuse charges.
I'll have to look, but I suspect Mike Freeman was involved in the decision not to investigate/prosecute Ellison.
For all of this grandstanding, and attempts to appease the crowd, this decision is pretty meaningless. The actual work of the investigation and prosecution will likely be done by experienced, professional investigators and attorneys. The only real difference is that, in the event that there is no conviction, Ellison is much more likely to escape with relatively little political damage. The only box Ellison doesn't check on the protected class bingo card is "woman", and as we know that can change instantly if it's necessary.
I think that History shows what happens when appeasement is tried, and we'll have to wait and see how this goes. I do think that given the fact that the "system" that everyone is complaining about is the same "system" that gave us Ellison, Frey, Carter, Walz, Ellison, etc. Sure looks like a fox/chicken coop situation to me.
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