Enforcement of financial crimes is dropping under Trump Adminstration

 Earlier this week, Bloomberg broke the news that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, which helps regulate the securities market, was told to stop investigating an eye-popping case of potential insider trading, reported Mother Jones. The direction came from a top adviser to the agency’s Trump-appointed chairman, who ordered investigators to retract a referral to the agency’s lawyers surrounding suspiciously timed and lucrative oil trades that were executed minutes before the president sent social media posts rescinding threats to attack Iranian power plants.

This sidelined CFTC investigation is just the latest in a growing pattern: Enforcement of financial crimes is dropping in Donald Trump’s second term, unraveling offices and reforms that will be difficult to rebuild. It also is laying the groundwork for more corporate fraud, or even a broader financial crisis, in the long term, experts say.

This trend has affected each federal agency that handles financial crimes—including the Securities and Exchange Commission, which oversees Wall Street, the Justice Department, and the White House itself. Just a few months after Trump’s reelection, the SEC dismissed a case against crypto exchange Coinbase, then halted a prosecution against a Chinese crypto entrepreneur who bought millions in tokens from a Trump family crypto venture. Several months later, the White House pardoned crypto giant Binance and its ex-CEO.

In May, a private-sector analysis found that the SEC had initiated just five enforcement cases against companies in half a year—the lowest number in the first half of a fiscal year in at least 16 years.

This spring, Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sent letters to the SEC expressing concern: The director of the enforcement division that brings cases against companies quit after just six months on the job, reportedly over disagreements with the agency about acting against entities that back Donald Trump. Staffing at the corporate watchdog had also fallen by 17 percent, with much of that coming from the enforcement arm. In April, the SEC quietly released data showing that in fiscal year 2025, the agency had brought nearly 30 percent fewer new enforcement actions than the prior year. In May, a private-sector analysis found that the SEC had initiated just five enforcement cases against companies in half a year—the lowest number in the first half of a fiscal year in at least 16 years.

Some drop in enforcement activity when a new president takes office is normal, says Eugene Soltes, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies white-collar crime and corporate compliance. That’s true regardless of party affiliation, because each new administration shifts its priorities and enforcement staff in the initial months after inauguration. But the current waning enforcement of white-collar crime, he says, goes beyond the typical dip that comes with a new presidency.

“I think it’s been clear that the current administration has been very vocal about having a lighter footprint and lighter-touch approach to disciplining companies,” Soltes says. “This seems to be a direct output of policy shifts.”

To read more CLICK HERE

True crime grabs the headlines: Lindsay Clancy jury goes off the rails

True crime grabs the headlines as judge refuses to to declare a mistrial for "deadlocked" jury in Lindsay Clancy's murder trial. The judge order the jury to keep trying to reach a verdict after a dramatic sixth day of deliberations in a case that has gripped America, reported the BBC.

Tensions flared in court after the jury forewoman sent the judge a note saying one juror would not follow the judge's instructions on reasonable doubt.

There was audible shock in the room when the defense team asked for the juror to be removed, a request that was denied by the judge.

Clancy, 36, is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of her three children - Cora, five, Dawson, three, and eight-month-old Callan - at her Massachusetts family home on 24 January 2023.

The former labor and delivery nurse does not deny strangling her two sons and daughter in the basement of their house.

But her lawyer argues she was suffering from postpartum psychosis at the time, and could not distinguish right from wrong.

The jury of nine women and three men in Plymouth has deliberated for some 35 hours without a verdict, following nearly six weeks of trial proceedings.

The panel has twice previously sent the judge notes saying it could not come to a unanimous decision, but Thursday was the first hint of rancor in the deliberation room.

Clancy's lawyer, Kevin Reddington, said in court that the jury forewoman had sent another note, this one complaining to Judge William Sullivan that a juror was refusing to listen to the law on reasonable doubt.

Reddington and prosecutor Jennifer Sprague had an animated discussion with the judge in court.

Reporters in the room could not hear the exchange, but the BBC saw exasperated facial expressions and gestures from Clancy's lawyer.

Former U.S. Attorney sue DOJ and AG Blanche over his firing

Less than three hours after a right-wing influencer revealed a blog post critical of Donald Trump, the DOJ fired U.S. Attorney Will Rosenzweig. He received an emailed letter signed by Pam Bondi, then the attorney general, dismissing him from his position as the U.S. attorney for Miami, effective immediately. No reason was provided, reported The New York Times.

Mr. Rosenzweig has now sued the Justice Department along with Todd Blanche, who now runs the department, and Jason A. Reding Quiñones, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, asking for financial damages and his job back. In doing so, he joined a growing list of former prosecutors and federal agents who have gone to court in an effort to fight back against the widespread purge of law enforcement officials deemed to be disloyal to the president.

During Mr. Trump’s second term, agents and prosecutors have been fired for any number of reasons. Some were seasoned veterans who lost their jobs while trying to protect subordinates from being dismissed. Others were accused, sometimes incorrectly, of having worked on criminal cases involving the president. Many worked on cases stemming from the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Mr. Rosenzweig’s firing was one of several that shared a different twist: right-wing commentators claimed to be behind them. On the morning after he was terminated, Ms. Winters reposted a message from another far-right influencer, Laura Loomer, announcing the news. Ms. Winters’s message, punctuated by a smiley-face emoji, declared: “Got this guy fired.”

Many of Ms. Winters’s posts have since been deleted, but lawyers for Mr. Rosenzweig included screenshots of them in their lawsuit. In the posts, she said that Mr. Rosenzweig had “smeared” Mr. Trump in his writings by calling him “mentally unfit” and a “white supremacist.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Former special counsel Jack Smith is not a criminal

Whatever one might think of Jack Smith’s performance as a prosecutor — I’ve got criticisms, and reasonable minds can differ — the guy is no criminal, wrote Elie Honig in New York Magazine.

Sure, congressional Republicans have worked themselves into a retributive frenzy — We’ve got him now! — while Donald Trump shakes pom-poms behind them. “Justice at last???” the president mused on Truth Social, expectantly. But last week’s criminal referral of Smith to the Justice Department by House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan is pure sleight of hand. On close inspection, even Jordan doesn’t quite buy into his own carnival barkery on this one.

Jordan alleges that Smith lied when he testified behind closed doors to the Judiciary Committee in December 2025. Smith was asked whether, during his investigation of Trump for 2020 election subversion, he reviewed documents containing the content of text messages sent or received by members of Congress. The key to understanding Jordan’s gambit is that there are two separate batches of documents at issue. We’re going to get a bit technical here, but we need to be precise to see through the bullshit.

It almost goes without saying at this point because it’s become so common, but this is yet another act in Trump’s political payback tour. The list of names is now familiar and seemingly endless: Letitia James, James Comey, Jerome Powell, Senators Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin, E. Jean Carroll, and pretty much anyone else who has ever glanced sideways at the president. Unsurprisingly, all of these efforts at prosecution have failed thus far.

If the Justice Department does somehow ram a charge against Smith through a grand jury, that case will fail too. Before a trial jury can even consider the fact that Smith did not actually commit perjury, he will have a powerful motion to dismiss based on vindictive prosecution. It’s plain that Trump and his DoJ targeted Smith because of lingering political animus over his prior investigations of Trump. In October 2025, Trump claimed that Smith and others “should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!” He reiterated his request in January 2026, citing Smith’s “large-scale perjury.” And Trump openly celebrated just moments after news broke of Jordan’s referral of Smith to the DoJ.

Trump’s Justice Department has made commonplace the (previously) rarely invoked doctrine of vindictive prosecution. One federal judge already dismissed the indictment of Kilmar Ábrego García on that basis. And the cases against James and Comey likely would have gone down the same way, had they not been thrown out first because of other constitutional infirmities.

But it seems neither Trump nor the leaders of his Justice Department care much about their string of losses. As long as they get the sugar high of the investigation and (sometimes) the indictment, they don’t seem at all bothered when these cases inevitably crash and burn.

To read more CLICK HERE

Journalism under attack

 When the Justice Department charged Don Lemon, the former CNN anchor, and the reporter Georgia Fort and photographer Junn Bollmann with a pair of crimes that carry, in total, the possibility of 10 years or more in prison, something shifted in President Trump’s legal campaign against journalists.

While Mr. Trump has tried for decades to keep the press in line using civil lawsuits, federal criminal law is a sharper weapon. This time the law may also be on the president’s side, reported The New York Times.

The prosecution of Mr. Lemon and the others arose amid the turmoil in Minnesota following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti this year. On Jan. 18, a group of demonstrators entered and disrupted a service at Cities Church in St. Paul, where a local Immigration and Customs Enforcement official served as a pastor. In addition to the three journalists, dozens of protesters are charged with conspiring to violate the rights of the parishioners to religious freedom.

Mr. Lemon has a show on YouTube, and Ms. Fort and Mr. Bollmann are independent journalists. Their defense is clear. “I was there as a journalist, not a protester,” Mr. Lemon told me. “I was interviewing people from all sides. We were livestreaming. It’s all right there on tape.”

The product of journalism, for decades, has enjoyed substantial protection under the First Amendment. The courts almost never uphold prior restraints on publication or distribution of news. Thanks to Supreme Court decisions like New York Times v. Sullivan, it’s difficult for public figures who feel wronged by journalists to recover damages for libel. The courts protect journalistic outlets from potentially ruinous judgments because, in the words of that famous case from 1964, of the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”

But federal law, including the crimes for which Mr. Lemon and the other two are charged, offers no similar protections for the process of journalism. In 1972, the Supreme Court rejected a claim that the First Amendment entitled a journalist to refuse to comply with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury and be asked to identify confidential sources. In that case, Branzburg v. Hayes, the justices upheld the “obligation of reporters to respond to grand jury subpoenas as other citizens do and to answer questions relevant to an investigation into the commission of crime.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Newsom claims he is latest victim of DOJ political witch hunts

James Comey. Letitia James. Mark Kelly. Jay Powell.

According to Politico, the Justice Department has spent the last 18 months chasing President Donald Trump’s political adversaries in investigations that have more often than not crumbled under scrutiny. Now, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is adamant that he’s the next in a long line of vendetta cases brought at Trump’s direction.

And because of the recent prosecutorial misadventures of the Trump administration — which have dashed the Justice Department’s credibility in courts around the country — it’s become an argument that’s impossible to ignore. Even if it’s too soon to tell whether that’s actually what’s happening with the investigation surrounding Newsom’s wife Jennifer Siebel Newsom.

“This is a huge problem,” said Randall Eliason, former chief of the Public Corruption Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, D.C. “In any political corruption prosecution, the defense almost always claims it is a ‘political witch hunt,’ that prosecutors are targeting him or her for some political reason.”

“The best defense to that has always been DOJ’s tradition of independence from politics and long track record of pursuing corruption cases based only on the facts and law, without regard to political considerations,” Eliason added. “The Trump administration has abandoned that independence without even trying to hide it.”

Newsom preempted federal prosecutors with a four-minute video decrying an encroaching investigation — apparently aimed at his wife’s charity and his former chief of staff — as a politically motivated witch hunt. It mirrored a tactic Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, deployed earlier this year when he decried a nascent criminal probe as a baseless political attack.

A federal judge ultimately agreed and took the highly unusual step of blocking grand jury subpoenas in the probe, which was handled by Trump’s top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., Jeanine Pirro. Trump’s years of attacks on Powell’s fiscal policies, combined with flimsy allegations of misconduct, were clear evidence of a politically motivated probe, Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg concluded.

Newsom was quick to note that Trump has similarly spent years attacking him, even calling for him to be arrested. The California Democrat wants the world to equate him with Powell rather than another Trump adversary, former national security adviser John Bolton — who similarly claimed he was the target of a Trump-driven political probe only to later agree to plead guilty to mishandling classified information.

“Department of Justice prosecutors follow the facts and the law, not politics,” a DOJ spokesperson said. “This DOJ has returned to its mission of fighting crime, regardless of the name or status of alleged perpetrators. No bad actor is above the law.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Federal prosecutor who brought 'Comey 8647' off the case

A rookie federal prosecutor who brought a case accusing former FBI Director James Comey of threatening President Donald Trump’s life by posting a photo of seashells on Instagram has stepped off the case, reported NBC News.

Matthew Petracca, who had been recently hired as an assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina, is no longer on the Comey case, according to a court filing.

Petracca also dropped off of other criminal cases in the Eastern District of North Carolina in recent days, according to court filings. Petracca is a former Republican county committeeman in New Jersey whom W. Ellis Boyle, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, hired months ago, NBC News has reported. Boyle oversaw the highly criticized case, which will go to trial in October if it manages to survive legal challenges.

Petracca had contemplated leaving the Justice Department altogether, according to two people familiar with the matter, but instead remained a Justice Department employee after taking a week off. Petracca had not responded to a previous request for comment on his status at the Justice Department and did not respond to an additional request for comment Friday. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Severo is now heading the Comey case. Petracca did not handle a recent interaction with Comey’s defense team, which instead communicated with First Assistant U.S. Attorney Phil Aubart.

A two-count indictment was brought late last month and suggested that a reasonable person would interpret the image of the shells, arranged to spell out “86 47,” as “a serious expression of an intent to do harm to the President of the United States.”

To read more CLICK HERE

After two trips to the Supreme Court former death row inmate Richard Glossip is out on bond

Oklahoma District Judge Natalie Mai ordered former death row inmate Richard Glossip to be released from prison while awaiting a retrial, after 29 years behind bars. During these 29 years, Glossip famously faced several execution dates and ate his “last meal” three times, reported Juristnews.

Mai set the bail at $500,000, with release contingent upon Glossip complying with certain conditions, such as wearing an electronic monitoring device, observing a curfew, remaining within the state of Oklahoma, and refraining from speaking to any witnesses.

The order cited a letter written by the attorney general in April 2023 to the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board, which stated that the record does not support that Glossip is guilty of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt. Under the Oklahoma Constitution, bail must be granted unless there is clear and convincing evidence of guilt, leading the court to conclude that it could not reasonably deny bail.

The case stems from a murder-for-hire plot targeting Glossip’s former boss, Barry Van Treese, in 1997. Purported co-conspirator Justin Sneed confessed at trial to beating Van Treese to death, and claimed Glossip offered him money to do so. Glossip maintained his innocence throughout his defense, denying that he had any involvement with the murder.

While Glossip was imprisoned, his case faced a series of legal challenges surrounding his right to a fair trial, eventually culminating in the February 2025 decision by the US Supreme Court to overturn his conviction and order a new trial. The court’s 5-3 ruling was largely based on the prosecution’s failure to consider evidence that Sneed’s testimony was false.

Following the decision, the prosecution indicated its intent to retry Glossip on the existing first-degree murder charges, but not to pursue the death penalty.

Glossip’s attorney, Don Knight, stated that he is grateful that Judge Mai granted bond:

In doing so, she rejected the State’s claim that there is a strong case for guilt. For the first time in 29 years of being incarcerated for a crime he did not commit, during which he faced 9 execution dates and at 3 last meals, Mr. Glossip now has the chance to taste freedom while his defense team continues to pursue justice on his behalf against a system that the United States Supreme Court has found to be guilty of serious misconduct by state prosecutors.

In the bond order, Mai stated that “the Court hopes that a new trial, free of error, will provide all interested parties, and the citizens of Oklahoma, the closure they deserve.”

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Politics or training, why the increase in questionable prosecutions?

Excerpts from Shaun Ossei-Owusu’s, professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, article at Bloomberg Law:

In the past year, several high-profile federal investigations and prosecutions under Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department have dissolved as soon as they came under basic scrutiny. Those failures reportedly contributed to her removal.

As a law professor who teaches criminal law and legal ethics, I often hear a version of the same question from students and non-lawyer friends: “How could anyone prosecute that case?”

Commentators often note political motivations, but those explanations are incomplete. The confusion underlying that question points to a deeper feature of lawyering which extends beyond any particular administration and is easy to miss when the focus stays on politics.

At its core, legal training teaches lawyers to take a set of facts and construct a legally plausible argument, even when the underlying claim may be weak. Beginning in law school, students are given hypotheticals—sometimes far-fetched—and asked to frame legal claims in ways that make a weak position seem plausible. Over time, this becomes a professional habit.

The ability to stretch an argument serves an important function in the adversarial system. It ensures that competing positions are tested and that even unpopular views can be heard. But as I note in my recent book on lawyers and inequality, that elasticity has a less comfortable implication: It can stretch the boundaries of what prosecutors pursue, even when the case itself is thin.

Of course, individual resistance matters, as in the cases where prosecutors in both Trump terms were reassigned, stepped down, or were fired rather than having to push forward a case they didn’t believe served justice. Still, it doesn’t eliminate the underlying dynamic. As long as a case can be framed in legal terms and meets the minimal burden required by the grand jury, often someone within the system can be found to carry it forward.

And this is to say nothing of the less visible parts of the system. Every day, prosecutors across the country bring charges that raise similar questions about the strength of the case and basic fairness. The system allows government lawyers to turn contested facts into legal claims in ways that can produce real inequality.

This is especially true in the more common criminal prosecutions where defendants are not high-profile targets. They are not like Comey, James, Powell, or Cook—all of whom are well-connected, white-collar professionals with advanced degrees and the resources to defend themselves in court. In everyday cases, judges and jurors often aren’t viewing these low-profile defendants with the same skepticism brought to overtly political cases, making weak cases more likely to succeed. The media and the public aren’t closely scrutinizing these cases, but they reflect the same dynamic.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Once vaunted DOJ needs incentives to find new talent

 

The Justice Department is taking a new tack to overcome hurdles in attracting qualified legal talent and to prevent current lawyers from leaving: offering signing and retention bonuses throughout the Civil Division, reported Bloomberg Law.

New vacancy postings show signing bonuses of $25,000 are newly available to staff offices investigating youth transgender treatments and litigating the Trump administration’s immigration agenda.

The financial enticements are an apparent first for a department that in previous years would be inundated with resumes from lawyers willing to take significant salary reductions compared to private sector legal practice. Padding lawyers’ biweekly paychecks signals a division growing more desperate to stave off further departures of valuable legal minds, including those who’ve expressed discomfort with defending the president’s policies from a slew of lawsuits.

Further, the head of the Civil Division—which plays a crucial role advancing and protecting the president’s policies in court—informed all his attorneys Monday that they’ll begin receiving a “retention incentive allowance” ranging from around $60 to $220 every pay period through Thanksgiving, according to an internal email reviewed by Bloomberg Law.

Trial attorney vacancies posted on DOJ’s website Tuesday for the Civil Division’s recently created enforcement and affirmative litigation branch describe in bold print “a signing bonus of up to $25,000" that may be awarded to “well-qualified candidates.” The job advertisements, which would support a DOJ team that’s been repeatedly losing in court over efforts to subpoena pediatric hospitals for sensitive data on minors prescribed drugs for gender dysphoria, instruct applicants that time is of the essence.

To read more CLICK HERE

Comey indicted again, the clown show continues

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has become the second Justice Department leader in seven months to secure an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a longtime target of President Donald Trump’s ire. And Trump is happy with Blanche's performance in the job, according to a person familiar with the discussions, reported NBC News.

Comey appeared briefly in court Wednesday on the latest charges. This time, the indictment accuses him of making a threat against the president when he posted a photo of seashells arranged to read “8647" on Instagram in May.

Comey's Instagram post. He later took it down.@comey via Instagram

The first indictment, under former Attorney General Pam Bondi, was filed in the Eastern District of Virginia over an allegation that Comey lied to Congress five years ago during remote testimony via Zoom. A judge dismissed that case, finding that the acting U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan — a Florida insurance attorney with no prior prosecutorial experience — was unlawfully holding her position and had no authority to seek the indictment in the first place. Comey maintains his innocence in both cases.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

Do military lawyers working as federal prosecutors violate Posse Comitatus Act?

 Following the mass exodus of federal prosecutors in Minnesota, the Justice Department has enlisted lawyers from the armed services to fill the gaps, according to Courthouse News Service.

Now, a federal judge is set to decide the legality of using military judge advocate general lawyers to prosecute civilians.

Paul E. Johnson, a Minnesota resident facing a count of assaulting a federal agent in January, claims Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hakes-Rodriguez is unlawfully prosecuting him in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

The act bars federal military troops from participating in civilian law enforcement except when expressly authorized by law — most commonly used to prosecute offenses committed by civilians on military intallations.

The Justice Department contends judge advocates may be detailed to “represent the United States in civil and criminal cases” — asserting Hakes-Rodriguez and others have fully satisfied the necessary requirement to practice in Minnesota federal courts.

“The only connection to the military is their membership, which is not part of their enforcement of civilian law," the government said in a reply brief.

Hakes-Rodriguez told Magistrate Judge Shannon Elkins on Friday his appointment falls under an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act allowing judge advocates assigned to civilian offices to perform duties as requested.

But former judge advocates say military regulations never allowed for the general assignment of military lawyers in civilian matters.

“It is so wrong, and it’s inappropriate, and it’s going to undermine the relationship between civil and military authority for a long time going forward,” said attorney John Marti, a former judge advocate and federal prosecutor in Minnesota.

“If it’s OK for the attorney general to designate military attorneys as special assistants to prosecute civilians in civilian courts for civilian offenses with no nexus to military authority, there is no limitation on the attorney general doing that with all U.S. attorney’s offices,” he added.

A group of 11 former U.S. military attorneys, including Marti, submitted an amicus brief in Johnson’s case, urging the government to revert back to the tradition of limiting military attorney participation in civilian matters.

The group said the government typically details military attorneys on occasion to prosecute offenses committed by civilians on military installations, and in other cases where the military has a “clear and defined interest.”

“The government recently expanded this practice far beyond its historical and statutory bounds,” the group said in the March 10 brief — citing the dozens of military attorneys assigned to U.S. attorney’s offices in Minnesota, Washington, D.C. and Tennessee.

“During these temporary duty assignments, JAGs are not prosecuting cases with a nexus to the U.S. Military,” the former military attorneys said in the brief. “Instead, they are prosecuting civilians for the kind of general, domestic federal offense that civilian DOJ prosecutors would normally handle.”

The group said the government’s use of military attorneys is harming civil-military relations by suggesting military-led law enforcement is the “catch-all” substitute for regular civilian constitutional due process.

Military attorneys also have no choice, according to the group, unlike typical federal prosecutors.

“When civilian prosecutors are instructed by their superiors to pursue legally flawed or ethically suspect cases, they can resign, as they have done in this district,” the group said. “But JAGs do not have this option — they must obey their military superior’s lawful orders upon possible penalty of criminal prosecution.”

Reports say as many as 25 military attorneys could work at the depleted Minnesota U.S. Attorney’s Office in an attempt to keep it afloat after mass resignations during Operation Metro Surge due to ethical conflicts.

Before the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, the office had reportedly more than 40 prosecutors on staff.

With that number now cut in half — not including enlisted military attorneys — it’s unclear how a judicial ruling against the use of military attorneys would impact the office, but Marti said the option to pull lawyers from other government departments — like DHS and ICE — has always existed.

“The question you ask yourself is why do you need military attorneys when all these other agencies have attorneys as well — why not detail them?” Marti said. “I think in part because it’s easier to direct military attorneys to go do a mission.”

Since Operation Metro Surge began, federal prosecutors have faced a reputational downfall through a myriad of court orders threatening contempt over misrepresentations of fact and law, and flouting of judicial instruction. Now, military attorneys sent in to ease the burden face similar challenges.

Hakes-Rodriquez was removed as the prosecutor on Johnson’s case Monday — only to be replaced with fellow military attorney William Richards.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

To read more CLICK HERE

DOJ wants to screen prosecutor misconduct complaints before adjudicated by state disciplinary authorities

The US Department of Justice (DOJ)  introduced a proposed rule that would establish a formal procedure for reviewing complaints and allegations of professional misconduct against department attorneys before they are taken up by state disciplinary authorities, reported JuristNews.

The proposal, which comes amid increasing scrutiny of the department’s attorneys and their adherence to ethical obligations in implementing Trump administration policies, seeks to empower Attorney General Pam Bondi to request the suspension of state bar investigations until the Department of Justice conducts a review of any originating complaint. The department said the proposed rule reflects concerns about what it described as the increasing “weaponization” of bar complaints against government lawyers, including complaints filed by political activists against senior DOJ officials and career attorneys.

The department argued that such complaints risk interfering with the attorney general’s statutory responsibility under 28 U.S.C. 519 to supervise DOJ litigation and legal activities.

The proposal would amend 28 CFR Part 77 to allow the Attorney General to review allegations that a current or former DOJ attorney violated ethics rules while performing federal duties. Under the proposal, if a complaint is filed with a state, territorial, or District of Columbia bar disciplinary authority, the DOJ could request that the authority pause investigative steps requiring participation from the attorney until the department completes its review.

Hilary Gerzhoy, chair of the rules of professional conduct review committee for the District of Columbia Bar, said the proposal “is incredibly concerning, adding that it “is inconsistent with all precedents,” and that attorney discipline in Washington, DC, is conducted through an independent process overseen by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals rather than the federal government.

Public comments on the proposed rule will be accepted through April 6, 2026.

To read more CLICK HERE

Purges and mass resignations deplete U.S. Attorney's offices across the country

 The Justice Department is requiring all US attorneys to rapidly assign prosecutors for “emergency jump teams” supporting districts handling alleged assaults or obstruction of law enforcement, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg Law.

A senior official instructed leaders of the nation’s 93 US attorney’s offices Feb. 2 that they have until Feb. 6 to designate one or two assistant US attorneys who’d be available for short-term surges in unspecified areas needing “urgent assistance due to emergent or critical situations.” The memo coincides with media reports this week of a new round of mass resignations of federal prosecutors in Minneapolis.

Rather than deploying volunteers to meet the needs of Minnesota or other districts experiencing protests from White House-directed boosts in law enforcement, the “jump teams” are designed to establish a standing list of prosecutors available on a rotating basis, said Francey Hakes, the director of DOJ’s Executive Office for US Attorneys, in her emailed memo.

Hakes’ message signals the Trump administration’s attempt to offset career prosecutor attrition—a recurring pattern in liberal-leaning districts the White House has singled out with military and law enforcement deployments—with a nationwide pool of reinforcements on standby.

To read more CLICK HERE

 

DOJ says taking a licensed, holstered firearm to a protest is a reason to get shot

Some high-profile gun rights activists and groups bristled  at government officials’ claims that federal agents may have been justified in killing a Minneapolis man during a protest because he was carrying a pistol, according to The New York Times.

The right to bear arms in public has been a mainstay of the gun rights movement.

On Saturday, a Los Angeles federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, became a magnet for outrage when he wrote on social media that “If you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you. Don’t do it!”

Gun Owners of America, one of the country’s largest gun advocacy groups, said in its own posting that it condemned his “untoward comments.”

The group said that “federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm. The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting — a right the federal government must not infringe upon.”

The gun group also accused “the Left” of “antagonizing” immigration agents.

The exchange could point to political fissures between the gun rights movement and President Trump, who is generally seen as an ally. And it already is sparking debate within a movement that has long warned against government overreach.

The National Rifle Association referred to federal agents as “jackbooted government thugs” in a 1995 mailer. But in a statement Saturday night, the N.R.A. put blame for the shooting on Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and other “radical progressive politicians.” It said their “calls to dangerously interject oneself into legitimate law-enforcement activities have ended in violence.”

“As there is with any officer-involved shooting, there will be a robust and comprehensive investigation that takes place to determine if the use of force was justified,” the group added.

In a separate post, the N.R.A. called Mr. Essayli’s comments “dangerous and wrong.”

“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,” it said.

Video footage shows that Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital, stepped between a woman and an agent pepper spraying her, and then was sprayed himself. He appeared to hold a phone in one hand and nothing in the other.

As agents restrained him, one appeared to take his pistol, videos show, and then agents opened fire, killing him.

Chief Brian O’Hara of the Minneapolis police said that Mr. Pretti was an American citizen with no known criminal record, and had a firearms permit allowing him to carry a gun openly.

“We the people have a right to bear arms in public,” Cam Edwards, a prominent gun rights activist and radio host, said in a social media post. “I’ve encountered countless police while I’ve been armed, and never been shot. The presence of a firearm, by itself, is not an indicator of a criminal intent or a threat to law enforcement.”

Gregory Bovino, a top Border Patrol official leading the crackdown in Minneapolis, said at a news conference on Saturday that Mr. Pretti “had two loaded magazines,” and appeared to want to do “maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”

No evidence has been produced to back up that claim.

Dana Loesch, a former spokeswoman of the National Rifle Association, highlighted Mr. Bovino’s comments, saying in a social media post that “statements like this don’t help. What he has or didn’t have isn’t the issue. What he was doing, with or without it, is the issue. Did he draw on agents? Reach for it? Was it on him?”

Christopher Fernandez, an Orlando, Fla., firearms instructor and founder of Equality In Arms Defensive Training, also took issue with Mr. Bovino. Mr. Fernandez said the official had falsely characterized Mr. Pretti as “a crazed assailant launching himself at C.B.P. officers, pistol drawn and firing with the intent to slaughter as many of them as possible.”

He said that the heavy-handed tactics of federal agents have left people on both sides of the political spectrum “living in fear.”

He added: “How can they not be when this is what we are seeing?”

The Trump administration has argued strongly for the right to carry guns. A Justice Department suit filed in December against the U.S. Virgin Islands over its gun permitting process, for example, noted that “law-abiding citizens” have “a fundamental right to ‘carry handguns publicly for self-defense.’”

Jordan Levine, who runs an online gun rights advocacy company called A Better Way 2A, said that “what happened in Minneapolis shows that ICE will treat the mere presence of a legal firearm as justification for lethal force. Carrying a gun is not a crime, yet it was readily used as proof of dangerous intent once Alex Pretti was dead and unable to contest that narrative.”

Danielle L. Campbell, who helped found Protect Peace, a community outreach group for gun owners in Central and Southern Florida, said she was shocked after watching video of the shooting.

“I’m willing to wait for more facts to come out,” she said. “What I will say is carrying a concealed weapon legally shouldn’t be a death sentence.”

To read more CLICK HERE

Former Trump lawyer says Jack Smith should be celebrated

 John Dowd, President Trump's former lawyer writes at MS NOW:

Former special counsel Jack Smith is scheduled to appear on Wednesday for a closed-door interview with the House Judiciary Committee, despite his request to testify in an open and public hearing. In my opinion, Republicans are depriving the American people of the opportunity to hear from a career prosecutor who investigated serious allegations that President Donald Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election and unlawfully retained classified documents. 

I am not a newcomer to high-profile and politically charged investigations. Over a legal career spanning six decades, I prosecuted mobsters and politicians, and I defended both Republican and Democratic senators and House members. More recently, I represented President Trump during his first term in the special counsel’s investigation into allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. 

Republicans are depriving the American people of the opportunity to hear from a career prosecutor who investigated serious allegations against the president.

Jack Smith was once my adversary in a high-profile investigation of a Republican client. In that investigation, Smith proved himself to be fair, impartial and fearlessly committed to the facts and the law. He was unmotivated by partisan politics. But recent attacks on Smith are motivated by partisan politics, and they are untethered to the facts or the law.

As a prosecutor, I have experienced the pressure applied to attorneys pursuing high-profile investigations. During my time in the Department of Justice in the 1970s, I oversaw the federal investigation into Pennsylvania Democrat Dan Flood, a House appropriations subcommittee chairman. The attorney general’s office received some 300 phone calls from members of Congress urging us to drop the investigation. Then-President Jimmy Carter never pressured us to back down — despite some lawmakers threatening that if Carter did not get the Justice Department to drop the investigation, his legislation would go nowhere.

That’s how the Justice Department is supposed to work. You follow the facts and the law, and you don’t let politics pollute decision-making. You swear an oath to the Constitution and put country first; you do not swear an oath to the person temporarily occupying the presidency. And you do not put the private interests of one man over the interests of every United States citizen.   

That commitment to the rule of law is what I experienced from Jack Smith when I represented Rep. Don Young of Alaska, one of the highest-ranking Republicans in Congress at the time. Smith inherited this investigation when he became chief of the Public Integrity Section — the Justice Department unit that oversaw public corruption cases from 1976 until the Trump administration effectively dismantled it this year. Back then, the FBI had been investigating the congressman for years, but he had done nothing wrong. When Smith took over the case, I asked to meet with him and discuss the investigation of my client.

That’s how the Justice Department is supposed to work. You follow the facts and the law, and you don’t let politics pollute decision-making.

Smith met with me for more than three hours. He had clearly read the case and asked thoughtful, probing questions. A few days after the meeting, Smith called to inform me that he was declining to prosecute. 

In all of my interactions with him, Smith demonstrated that he was a straight shooter, open-minded and a man of integrity. He did not let politics influence an investigation, and he did not care whether my client was a Republican or a Democrat. That is the Jack Smith I know. I cannot stand silent while he is vilified by people who do not know him. 

Jack Smith should be celebrated for courageously pursuing justice. I say this not as a member of any political party but as a lawyer, prosecutor, defense attorney and former Marine who cares more deeply about the rule of law and the well-being of our country than I do about the whims of a former client

To read more CLICK HERE

NBC News: Grand jury declines to indict N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James, less than two weeks after the first case was dismissed

The Justice Department failed to secure an indictment against New York Attorney General Letitia James, a person familiar with the matter told NBC News.

The presentation to the grand jury came less than two weeks after the original criminal case against her was dismissed.

James, a frequent political target of President Donald Trump’s who had successfully brought a fraud lawsuit against him, had previously been indicted by a grand jury on one charge of bank fraud and another of making false statements to a financial institution.

James has denied any wrongdoing. In a statement Thursday in response to reports that a grand jury did not re-indict her she said, "As I have said from the start, the charges against me are baseless. It is time for this unchecked weaponization of our justice system to stop."

"I am grateful to the members of the grand jury and humbled by the support I have received from across the country. Now, I will continue to do my job standing up for the rule of law and the people of New York," James said.

Lindsey Halligan, the acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and a former personal attorney to Trump with no prior prosecutorial experience, presented the case to a grand jury on her own in the first go-round — and that case was declared void on Nov. 24 when a judge found Halligan’s appointment was unlawful.

The Justice Department initially vowed to appeal the ruling by U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie, but ultimately decided to seek a new, untainted indictment against James, a source familiar with the deliberations told NBC News earlier this week.

The new case was presented to a grand jury in Norfolk, Virginia, by different prosecutors.

The failure to secure an indictment on Thursday does not bar prosecutors from attempting to do so again in the future.

A separate source familiar with the matter said there “should be no premature celebrations.”

The Justice Department does not comment on grand jury matters.

Prosecutors have also been discussing trying to again bring a case against former FBI Director James Comey, who was indicted in October on charges of making a false statement to Congress and obstructing a congressional investigation.

Currie dismissed the case against him on the same day she tossed the case against James on the same grounds.

Trump named Halligan U.S. attorney for the Eastern District on Sept. 20, the day after he forced out his initial pick, Erik Siebert, who resisted pressure to prosecute Comey and James.

The Halligan appointment also came after Trump urged Attorney General Pam Bondi in a social media post to push ahead with prosecutions of Comey, James and another perceived political adversary, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff of California.

“Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that, essentially, ‘same old story as last time, all talk, no action. Nothing is being done. What about Comey, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, Leticia??? They’re all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done,’” Trump said the post, which a source previously confirmed to NBC News the president had intended as a direct message to Bondi, not a public post.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump continued, while praising Halligan as “a really good lawyer.”

To read more CLICK HERE

'Your Honor. Pat Fitzgerald, and it's the honor of my life to represent Mr. Comey in this matter'

Observations of Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes after the arraignment of James Comey:

The first is that there is a notable gap between prosecution and defense lawyers who showed up to yesterday’s hearing in what we might call pride of service. On the prosecution side, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia could not find a single lawyer who had worked for the office prior to late September to stand up in court and say, “My name is X and I represent the United States.” 

Not one.

The acting U.S. attorney, of course, had been fired because he wouldn’t bring this case. And no career official from the office was at the prosecution table either. Instead, there were two assistant United States attorneys from North Carolina, whose familiarity with the case was so limited that they stressed they were only just starting to get their hands around it and its discovery. 

On the other side, by contrast, Comey’s lead defense counsel introduced himself as follows: “Your Honor. Pat Fitzgerald, and it's the honor of my life to represent Mr. Comey in this matter.”

This is a bit of an inversion of the normal understanding of the roles of criminal lawyers. Federal prosecutors typically feel a certain honor and pride in representing the United States in court—believing that their cases represent attempts to do justice. Defense counsel, by contrast, generally think of themselves as representing a check on the justice system’s coercive power in general. But they often don’t take particular pride in their specific individual representations as embodying justice—much less that representing a particular accused miscreant is the honor of their lives. There are exceptions, of course, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a case in which the prosecution was so evidently ashamed of its case and the defense so visibly proud to represent someone accused of a crime.

Fitzgerald is, of course, a smart lawyer, and he was—I assume—making this point intentionally. But the point is also undoubtedly sincere. And it works rhetorically because it is so intuitively right. Fitzgerald is a famed federal prosecutor—one who has prosecuted mobsters, politicians, and White House officials on behalf of the United States—saying that the singular honor of his entire career is representing a defendant against prosecution by the United States, even as the government is having trouble finding lawyers to show up in court on its behalf.

The second point is a related one, and it concerns preparation. There is something embarrassing about the government indicting a case and then showing up in court completely unprepared to litigate it. Yet in a brief hearing, the government did not merely put forward new lawyers from a different state who had clearly been assigned to the matter only a day or two earlier, these lawyers declared they had not yet discerned the scope of their discovery obligations, anticipated that there might be issues with respect to classified material but did not yet know the full scope of those issues, and asked for time to sort things out that are normally sorted out before a case is ever brought. 

“We’re just getting our hands around the discovery as well,” prosecutor Tyler Lemons said, as though the prosecution hadn’t had five years to figure out what documents it might need to produce if it brought this case.

The defense too, acknowledged that it was also unprepared—but for a very different reason.

Fitzgerald stated he still lacked the most basic information about what the indictment alleges Comey is supposed to have done. The people about whom Comey is alleged to have lied to Congress are still unnamed, he noted. “We haven't received a single piece of paper of discovery to date. We still haven’t been told who PERSON 3 and PERSON 1 are. We don’t know the nature of the charges . . . “ 

Despite his professed unpreparedness, Fitzgerald was able to sketch out a speedy briefing schedule, in which the defense will file its motions to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution and challenging the legality of the appointment of Lindsey Halligan in less than two weeks and then, while the government is responding to those, prepare a second tranche of motions to file in November: “We're a little less certain of precisely what motions [these] would be, but there might be a Bronston literal truth defense motion. There may be a grand jury abuse motion, outrageous government conduct motion, but those motions would be addressed to the indictment,” he said. 

It is fairly normal to see cases in which at arraignment the defense has not gotten its act together yet while the prosecution has its ducks neatly lined up. Indictments, after all, sometimes take defendants by surprise. Defendants don’t always have their legal teams set up yet. 

The opposite situation—one in which the prosecution can’t even give a coherent account of its discovery process or a sense of the role classified material might play in the case, while the defense can lay out a roadmap to trial—I have never seen before. 

My third observation is that the reason for both of the first two points is the same and unsubtle: Because the government is behaving shamefully and proceeding with a rushed criminal case based on compound untruths, it neither has put itself in a position to behave responsibly—by having discovery ready and the like—nor does it have access to attorneys of the sort who know the case they have brought when it comes time to move it forward in court.

But expecting that sort of thing is apparently passé. Today the Eastern District of Virginia is already on to Letitia James for a crime she also didn’t commit.

To read more CLICK HERE

'This is extremely dangerous' Trump's push toward authoritarianism

The criminal indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, which came just days after President Donald Trump replaced a longtime prosecutor who decided against seeking charges with a trusted aide, has raised concerns of Justice Department politicization to a fevered pitch.

"It's what we see in authoritarian regimes, and this is what the Trump administration has done almost since Day 1, using the power of criminal prosecution either to punish people who are disfavored or to reward people who are favored," New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin, a Democrat, told USA TODAY.

"This is extremely dangerous," former George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter told USA TODAY. "We shouldn't have political prosecutions. It's just not the way we do things in a democracy."

To read more CLICK HERE

Law & Crime: Why James Comey's lawyers should be very happy right now — even after former FBI director's indictment

Matthew T. Mangino
Law & Crime News
September 29, 2925

I would be the happiest attorney in Virginia if I was representing James Comey.

Imagine having the opportunity to represent a former FBI director who has been charged, as The New York Times put it, "[by] an inexperienced prosecutor loyal to President Trump, in the job for less than a week, fil[ing] criminal charges against one of her boss's most-reviled opponents. She did so not only at Mr. Trump's direct command, but also against the urging of both her own subordinates and her predecessor, who had just been fired for raising concerns that there was insufficient evidence to indict."

What you've read is just the tip of the iceberg. This is going to be like stealing candy from a baby. Here are the top ten reasons, based on the findings of NBC News, why it's good to be Comey's attorneys.

1. The former FBI director was indicted five days before the statute of limitations was set to expire. That means if he wasn't charged by Sept. 30, 2025, he could never be charged. Seasoned career prosecutors, including Trump's own appointees, had five years to bring charges. They refused.

2. President Donald Trump publicly said that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi should prosecute Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and New York Attorney General Letitia James. All three political adversaries.

3. The president posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, his frustration that his political foes have not been arrested: "We can't delay any longer, it's killing our reputation and credibility. They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!"

4. Lindsey Halligan, the new acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, brought the charges against Comey despite concerns from prosecutors within her department. Prior to the charges, a senior Justice Department official told NBC News that career prosecutors in Halligan's office sent her a memo documenting why they believed that probable cause did not exist to secure an indictment against Comey.

5. The president's appointment of Halligan came after he expressed frustration that her predecessor, acting U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert, was refusing to bring charges against Comey. Trump fired Siebert.

6. The indictment was handed down by a grand jury in Alexandria, in the Eastern District of Virginia. The grand jury did not return an indictment on an additional count of making a false statement, according to court filings – some of the Justice Department's claims were rejected.

7. The government's case against Comey is based on the testimony of Andrew McCabe, a Comey deputy. McCabe said that Comey authorized him to leak information to the press, according to a 2018 Justice Department inspector general's report. But the report also found that McCabe made multiple false or misleading statements.

8. The indictment includes two counts: making a false statement and obstruction of a congressional proceeding. The charges stem from testimony Comey made during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. He denied that he authorized leaking information regarding the FBI's investigations into then-President Donald Trump or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He told Congress, "I stand by the testimony."

9. The Inspector General's report found that Comey flatly denied, under oath to investigators, authorizing McCabe's leak to The Wall Street Journal. Investigators concluded that "the overwhelming weight of evidence supported Comey's version of the conversation and not McCabe's."

10. During Trump's first term, the president directed then-special counsel John Durham to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation. Durham's team did not charge Comey with a crime, nor did Durham criticize Comey by name in his final report.

This stuff is better for the defense than DNA is for prosecutors in a murder trial.

And it would be funny if it wasn't such a blatant challenge to the rule of law, shaking the very fiber of our democracy.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner's Toll, 2010 was released by McFarland Publishing. He is a regular contributor to Law & Crime. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

To visit Law & Crime CLICK HERE