Rod Adams is the founder and Executive Director of the New Justice Project. The views expressed are his own.
Minnesota was attacked by our own federal government. ICE agents stormed into our neighborhoods like an occupying force: terrorizing residents, ripping people from their cars, dragging pregnant women through the snow, and even shooting and killing our neighbors.
Like many Minnesotans, I was in the streets, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with my community, demanding justice—and I was unjustifiably tear-gassed by a federal agent while doing it. I was there to call for accountability for the agents who murdered Alex Pretti and Renee Good, because their lives mattered.
With Mary Moriarty retiring at the end of this year, the open race for Hennepin County Attorney may be one of the most consequential contests in Minnesota, especially for those concerned about standing up to authoritarianism. Six people are currently vying to lead the office, but one candidate in particular raises serious red flags.
Anders Folk first showed up on my social media feed recently when it came out that he was campaigning with leadership of the Republican Party in Washington County while seeking the DFL endorsement in Hennepin County. But as I have learned, he isn't new. For years, the watchdog group Revolving Door Project, which scrutinizes executive branch appointees, has raised concerns about Folk's career trajectory. His campaign for County Attorney and puff pieces in local outlets have attempted to sanitize his work history, concocting a cover story that he simply was some career public servant who only worked in the Biden administration.
But the well-manicured resume he is campaigning on has glaring gaps.
In fact, Folk’s legal career exemplifies the exact type of dealing that corrodes public trust in government. He entered public service, accumulated connections and influence, then leveraged them to advance private interests. He first joined the Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor during the George W. Bush administration. After Barack Obama was elected, Folk departed the office for the private sector.
Following President Donald Trump’s 2016 victory, the Star Tribune reported that Folk was under consideration to be Trump’s U.S. Attorney pick for Minnesota. Instead, Trump appointed the conservative district court judge Erica MacDonald to the position. Folk was subsequently selected as her first assistant, the office’s second-in-command, giving him a prominent leadership role within the Trump administration and a significant hand in advancing its legal agenda. During his tenure working in the Trump administration, Folk also delivered a lecture at a small conservative evangelical university where students are required to sign a declaration that condemns both homosexuality and abortion.
After President Joe Biden was elected in 2020, Folk’s boss resigned as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, as is customary during a presidential transition to allow the incoming president to appoint a successor. Under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, the first assistant U.S. Attorney typically assumes the role in an acting capacity when the U.S. Attorney steps down. Accordingly, Folk ascended to the temporary position while awaiting the confirmation of Biden’s nominee by the U.S. Senate. After a very short stint in D.C., Folk joined the conservative law firm Jones Day where he is now a partner.
According to Reuters, Folk’s firm has served as a go-to law firm for the Trump campaign and the Republican Party. Bloomberg has described Folk’s firm as “Donald Trump’s favorite law firm”. Meanwhile, the New York Times reported that his firm has been “dedicated not just to helping Republicans win elections but to helping them achieve their political aims once in office.” An analysis from the Columbia Journalism Review further reports that Folk’s firm has become the top choice for corporate executives seeking to counter labor unionization efforts within their workplaces, which explains why no labor unions have endorsed his County Attorney campaign.
Whether Folk personally agrees with all of the terrible work he is involved with is beside the point. At best, his record shows a willingness to prioritize paychecks over principles, and it highlights his interest in personal access over accountability. If this man is running to be in charge of the state’s largest public law office, we might want to consider what his choices and affiliations reveal about his values.
Behind all of his campaign’s conservative money, there are two familiar faces inauspiciously propping him up. Folk’s top supporter is Andrew Luger, a former U.S. Attorney who got shellacked in his campaign for Hennepin County Attorney in 2006, losing by nearly 20 points—the largest losing margin in recent memory. Luger’s support of Folk is equal parts fundraising boost as it is electoral baggage. The most recent candidate Luger was behind in a major race was in 2020 when he endorsed a pro-Israel challenger to Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. Luger’s candidate raised six times the money that Omar did, and still went on to lose the election by nearly 20 points. Folk is now repeating the notorious '06 Luger strategy: building a campaign that attempts to coalesce Republicans and centrists but ultimately appeals only to the rich and well-connected. Their country club coalition strategy failed 20 years ago, and it will fail just as miserably now.
His other top surrogate is Martha Holton Dimick, yes, the candidate who infamously crashed out at Open Streets in 2022. Similarly to Luger, Dimick went on to resoundingly lose her County Attorney election by nearly 16 points, then pitifully lost her bid for a vacant Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board seat a year later.
Folk has recently sought to take credit for the prosecution of Derek Chauvin, seemingly to bolster his DFL credentials. However, anyone who followed the case knows that it was led by an extraordinary legal team assembled by Attorney General Keith Ellison, with the legendary lawyer Jerry Blackwell playing a key role in securing the state court conviction. The historic outcome of Chauvin’s original conviction was the result of the tireless efforts of the state-level prosecution team—of which Folk was not a part.
Folk’s involvement came later, with the federal grand jury indictment only coming after the challenging work of a state-level prosecution. Chauvin’s ensuing federal plea deal granted him the privilege of serving his federal sentence concurrently with his state sentence, and it allowed him to serve his full sentence in a federal facility rather than a Minnesota state prison. In short, Folk's contributions to the case came far too late and were relatively inconsequential.
Today, the Trump administration is actively stalling and obstructing Minnesota’s local efforts to investigate and prosecute the illegal actions of federal agents. The federal government’s strategy is to wait out the remaining months of Mary Moriarty’s term, hoping that her successor will take a less assertive approach to these cases. And who better to achieve that goal than one of their own—Trump administration alumnus Anders Folk?
In this moment, we need leadership guided by core values rather than vanity. Considering his track record, there is strong reason to question whether Folk would seriously prosecute ICE agents or bring any kind of justice for what we have lived through. Anders Folk has repeatedly shown that he views our communities as collateral for his personal ambitions.
