Tag Archives: DOJ

Politico reports: GOP Sen. Thom Tillis said Tuesday he has told the White House he will oppose Ed Martin’s nomination to be the top federal prosecutor for the District of Columbia, a potentially fatal blow to his already dicey confirmation chances. Tillis spoke to reporters after meeting with Martin on Monday night. The North Carolinian, who is seeking reelection next …

Punchbowl News reports: Ed Martin’s troubled bid to become U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia is in real doubt after the Senate Judiciary Committee announced it wouldn’t consider his nomination this week. Late Monday night, Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans noticed an executive business meeting for Thursday that didn’t include Martin’s nomination. Time is running out for Martin, who can only …

The Huffington Post reports: A group of more than 150 retired state and federal judges sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday condemning the Trump administration’s attacks on the judiciary, saying it’s clear the president believes he can “threaten and intimidate” judges into submitting to his agenda. The letter focuses largely on the recent courthouse arrest of …

The New York Times reports: The Trump administration on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to sharply restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone — taking the same position as the Biden administration in a closely watched case that has major implications for abortion access. The court filing by the Justice Department is striking, given …

Bloomberg News reports: The Trump administration is “decommissioning” a Department of Justice unit that has long been at the center of dismantling transnational organized crime networks, drug cartels and human trafficking rings. Leaders of the unit, called the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces, or OCDETF, were told they had until Sept. 30 to shut down operations, people familiar with …

Politico reports: Trump’s interim U.S. Attorney, Ed Martin, is coming for the capital’s weed, too — and threatening to upend a tacit agreement where federal prosecutors have respected DC’s local marijuana laws. The opening salvo came via a letter from Martin to a D.C. medical-marijuana vendor. “Your dispensary appears to be operating in violation of federal law,” he wrote, “and …

The Associated Press reports: The Justice Department unit that ensures compliance with voting rights laws will switch its focus to investigating voter fraud and ensuring elections are not marred by “suspicion.” The new mission statement for the voting section makes a passing reference to the historic Voting Rights Act, but no mention of typical enforcement of the provision through protecting …

CNN reports: As controversies pile up around President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as US attorney for Washington, DC, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee met behind closed doors this week to discuss concerns about Ed Martin’s nomination and whether senators should take the extraordinary step of holding a hearing on it. The senators-only meeting on Tuesday came as Republicans …

“Today is Fentanyl Awareness day. In President Trump’s first 100 days we’ve seized over 22 million fentanyl laced pills, saving over 119 Million lives. We are fighting relentlessly for the families of loved ones lost, for those whose lives are at risk, and for the soul of our nation. We will not rest until this poison is off our streets …

The Washington Post reports: The new head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division is dramatically reshaping the office to propel President Donald Trump’s social agenda, prompting the departure of about half of the division’s lawyers in recent weeks, according to people familiar with the situation and public statements from top officials. Since being sworn in this month, civil rights …

NBC News reports: The suspect who was arrested Saturday in the theft of Secretary Kristi Noem’s purse is in the country illegally, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia said in an interview with NBC News. Ed Martin said a second suspect who also is in the country illegally is being sought by law enforcement. It is not believed …

The Washington Post reports: Interim D.C. U.S. attorney Ed Martin apologized this week for praising a pardoned Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendant who supported Nazi ideology and photographed himself posing as Adolf Hitler, saying he didn’t know about the man’s extremist statements. But in videos and podcasts, Martin has defended the man since at least 2023, calling him a …

USA Today reports: Trump administration officials directed law enforcement nationwide to pursue suspected gang members into their homes, in some cases without any sort of warrant, according to a copy of the directive exclusively obtained by USA TODAY. The directive, issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi March 14, provides the first public view of the specific implementation of the 1798 …

STAT News reports: Last week, at least one scientific journal received a letter from a top U.S. attorney asking it to respond to alleged bias. Now, one of the world’s leading medical journals, has received a similar inquiry as well. The New England Journal of Medicine’s editor in chief, Eric Rubin, received a letter from the interim U.S. attorney for …

Axios reports: Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday she is resuming the practice of attempting to seize reporters’ phone records in order to smoke out leakers. It is a complete reversal of the policy that former President Biden and former Attorney General Merrick Garland put in place restricting subpoenas of reporters’ news-gathering materials. “I have concluded that it is necessary …

The Free Press reports: Ed Martin, the firebrand Republican activist whom President Donald Trump picked to be the top prosecutor in D.C., has a new target: Wikipedia. Martin, the interim U.S. attorney in Washington and Trump’s permanent selection to serve in that role, sent a letter on Thursday afternoon to the Wikimedia Foundation that alleged it “is engaging in a …

ABC News reports: Ed Martin, President Donald Trump’s nominee for the next U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., apologized in a new interview for his past praise of a Jan. 6 rioter who had a lengthy history of antisemitic statements and infamously posted photos of himself dressed as Adolf Hitler. “I’m sorry,” Ed Martin said in an interview with the Jewish …

The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to allow enforcement of a ban on transgender people in the military, while legal challenges proceed. The high court filing follows a brief order from a federal appeals court that kept in place a court order blocking the policy nationwide. Trump signed an executive order a week …

NBC News reports: The Trump administration has quietly transformed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, forcing out a majority of career managers and implementing new priorities that current and former officials say abandon a decadeslong mission of enforcing laws that prohibit discrimination in hiring, housing and voting rights.  “It’s been a complete bloodbath,” said a senior Justice Department lawyer in the …

The Washington Post reports: The Justice Department on Tuesday canceled hundreds of grants to community organizations and local governments, including funding for gun-violence prevention programs, crime-victim advocacy and efforts to combat opioid addiction, according to an email obtained by The Washington Post. Maureen Henneberg, the acting head of the Office of Justice Programs, which oversees the Justice Department grant program, …