Latest in Justice Department
Under the logic of the government’s motion to dismiss the charges against Michael Flynn, the FBI can’t investigate whether someone is a Russian agent unless it already has evidence that the person is a Russian agent.
The New York Times publicized a package of legislative proposals the Department of Justice submitted to Capitol Hill. What should we make of these new proposals?
In response to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Justice Department submitted draft legislation last week asking Congress to implement proposals including allowing judges to toll statutes of limitations during emergencies and relaxing requirements of the Speedy Trial Act. The department also proposes to allow video teleconferencing for preliminary hearings, stating that this would “ensure that defendants are able to access courts shortly after their arrest.”
The Justice Department sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler responding to the committee’s request for further information regarding U.S. Attorney John Durham’s review of the Russia investigation. The letter is available here and below.
Traditional organized crime, ranging from the Italian-American mafia to street gangs, has long been a target of American law enforcement efforts. Unlike purely domestic organized crime, transnational organized crime, defined by the Justice Department as groups that pursue criminal activities across geographic boundaries, has profound national security implications.
On Thursday, Justice Department Spokesperson Kerri Kupec released a statement, included in full below, regarding Attorney General Bill Barr's letter concerning the Mueller report.
When President Trump appointed the unqualified Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general on Nov. 7, 2018, many prominent people believed that the country faced yet another “constitutional crisis” point.
The executive branch has several ways of asserting exclusive presidential powers. Presidential signing statements, memoranda from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), legal briefs—these are well-studied tools of executive claims-staking. The use of these tools in the Trump administration has received plenty of coverage on this blog and others.
It isn’t every day that the Department of Justice acknowledges formally that the president of the United States lied in a speech to Congress. But that’s how I read a letter I received a few days ago from the department.
Late last year, in an interview with The New York Times, President Trump declared that he has the “absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.” In a similar vein, the president’s personal lawyer John Dowd has said that a “president cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to ex