This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, February 21st,

2023, and Caleb Brown.

A Minnesota police officer framed 30 people for crimes they didn't commit, and then framed some teenagers for

a separate crime.

The scam is now well documented.

The question is, can she be sued for violating the rights of the young people involved?

The wrinkle that may ultimately make the cop bulletproof, she's a deputized federal agent.

Patrick Giacomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, is on the case.

We spoke last week.

You and I have spoken a number of times about task forces, and I think you've described this as

not quite qualified immunity on steroids.

Maybe you have used that phrase, but give us a sense of the general difficulty

that regular folks have trying to hold accountable officers who have

violated their rights, these officers who are a part of task forces.

Yeah, so I'm just calling this task force immunity at this point because it really is sort of either,

depending on how you look at it, this Midas touch of federal immunity or a kiss of death for the Constitution.

And so the way that this works is regular state and local officials, there is a statute that

allows you to sue them if they violate your constitutional rights.

That is subject to the doctrine of qualified immunity, which we've talked about a ton, and rightfully so, because it's terrible.

But when it comes to suing federal officers,

there's no similar statute.

And so the Supreme Court in a decision recently

...