Convicted political assassin Vance Boelter was back in a Minnesota courtroom Monday on the state’s charges against him, asking a judge if Sen. Amy Klobuchar would be brought in to testify in his case.

Boelter made a first appearance in Hennepin County District Court in the shootings that killed DFL state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, at their Brooklyn Park home, and severely wounded DFL state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin. The gunfire also struck the Hortmans’ dog, Gilbert, who was later euthanized.

During the brief hearing at the Public Safety Facility in downtown Minneapolis, Boelter’s public defender told the judge that Boelter would waive a reading of the eight-count indictment and also arguments on his $5 million bail. He asked that Boelter remain in federal custody during the state’s proceedings.

Boelter then addressed the judge, asking whether the court process would include whether Klobuchar would testify about what he claimed were five meetings he had with elected officials — in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023 — in Washington, D.C., after being flown there “at taxpayers’ expense.”

“Or is she above the law in this case?” Boelter asked Judge Juan G. Hoyos.

“That’s a question I can’t answer for you today,” the judge replied.

Boelter then asked the judge about his rights to free speech and religious freedom, claiming that he has not been able to give a full statement to law enforcement or meet with a priest since he’s been in federal custody.

Hoyos said those matters would be addressed at a future court hearing.

When prosecutors announced the federal indictment in July, they released a rambling handwritten letter they say Boelter wrote to FBI Director Kash Patel in which he confessed to the shootings. In a series of cryptic notes to The New York Times through his jail’s electronic messaging service, Boelter suggested his actions were partly rooted in the Christian commandment to love one’s neighbor. “Because I love my neighbors prior to June 14th I conducted a 2 year long undercover investigation,” he wrote.

Klobuchar responded Monday afternoon to the news of Boelter’s comments:

“We have found no record of my ever meeting or speaking with this murderer who will be spending the rest of his life in prison. This is the second time he has falsely brought me into his tormented web and no one should be giving him more attention.”

‘Today is the next step’

Boelter, 59, of Green Isle, Minn., was sentenced July 23 in U.S. District Court of Minnesota to two consecutive life terms in prison plus 40 years after pleading guilty June 11 to all six charges against him: two counts each of stalking, murder and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence.

Boelter was transferred from federal custody and into the Hennepin County Jail on Sunday.

John and Yvette Hoffman were present in the courtroom, as were Hortmans’ son, Colin, and his wife, Alina Bachman Hortman.

Afterward, Hoffman family attorney Matthew Forsgren released a statement, that read, “Today is the next step to ensure accountability. The state has an obligation just as the federal government to hold him accountable.”

Boelter’s next appearance is scheduled for Sept. 2.

No death penalty

Boelter’s plea in federal court came after negotiations with prosecutors, who in exchange agreed not to pursue the death penalty against him in the June 14, 2025, shootings.

The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office charged Boelter first — the day of the killings, while he was still on the run — and the federal charges came two days later.

A Hennepin County jury later indicted Boelter on eight charges, including two counts of first-degree premeditated murder in the killings of the Hortmans. A conviction on either of those state charges would be mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole. He also faces four counts of first-degree attempted murder, felony cruelty to an animal and impersonating a police officer.

Why pursue state charges

Boelter admitted in federal court to driving to the homes of four lawmakers in the morning hours of June 14, 2025, in a black Ford Explorer SUV designed to look like a law enforcement vehicle, and that he carried out the shootings of the Hoffmans and Hortmans while wearing a silicone mask and dressed as a law enforcement officer.

Federal prosecutors said Boelter’s motivation for the shootings was political.

“He was consumed with those he disagreed with,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Forbes told the court at his sentencing. “In this case, it was Democrats.”

Boelter’s internet and text-message history showed he knew the Minnesota Legislature “was so closely divided that by killing four state legislators, the inevitable result would be a shift in the balance of power in both legislative houses,” federal prosecutors wrote in a presentencing memo.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has been candid about the state’s prosecution — despite his federal life sentence — noting that a state conviction could not be commuted by a presidential pardon.

“It’s important that we go forward for the victims especially, but also so that there cannot be a presidential pardon,” she said in an interview with the Pioneer Press a day after Boelter’s sentencing.

While Moriarty said her office does not have any indication that President Donald Trump would even consider pardoning Boelter’s federal sentence, she noted how he granted blanket clemency to nearly 1,600 people charged or convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

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