The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/category/u-s-department-of-justice/)
As President Donald Trump calls himself the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, Attorney General William Barr has told people close to Trump that he may resign over Trump’s tweets about Justice Department investigations.
A national association of federal judges called an emergency meeting Tuesday to address growing concerns about the intervention of Justice Department officials and President Donald Trump in politically sensitive cases.
President Donald Trump named one of Senator Ted Cruz’s former staffers to lead a Justice Department office at the heart of a whistleblower complaint over anti-human trafficking grants. The White House said Jessica Elizabeth Hart, who works in the Justice Department’s legislative affairs office, will run the Office for Victims of Crime.
The Justice Department rejection of its own lawyers’ sentencing recommendation for President Donald Trump’s friend Roger Stone, causing four attorneys to withdraw, raising speculation about political interference. Trump called the case a “horrible and very unfair situation.”
The White House’s $31.7 billion budget proposal for the Justice Department includes large sums to fight violent crime, counter mass violence and combat the opioid crisis. But it would also cut many programs, including a 20 percent drop in aid to crime victims.
A Justice Department employee union asked the Inspector General to check on whether grants to Hookers for Jesus and the Lincoln Tubman Foundation were influenced by politics.
Attorney General William Barr issued new restrictions on the opening of investigations that could affect elections, an effort meant to avoid upending the presidential election as the FBI inadvertently did in 2016 when its campaign inquiries shaped the outcome of the race.
Phil Keith, director of the U.S. Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Office, and Katharine Sullivan, who runs DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs, will lead the Commission. Attorney General William Barr says the panel will fill “a need for a modern study of how law enforcement can best protect and serve American communities.”
A Justice Department inquiry launched more than two years ago to mollify conservatives clamoring for more investigations of Hillary Clinton has effectively ended with no tangible results. Conservatives are likely to be unhappy about the probe.
Rod Rosenstein, the high-profile former deputy attorney general who oversaw special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, is joining King & Spalding LLP, a law firm that is home to several other former senior law-enforcement officials.