DOJ

Office of Legal Counsel says Whitaker’s designation “comports with the terms of the Vacancies Reform Act.”

Hosted by Jim Swift.

Did the FBI really sever its relationship with Christopher Steele?

On June 14, Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice’s inspector general, released a long-awaited report on the partisan shenanigans of a few FBI agents in the lead-up to the 2016 election. The report sharply criticizes then-director James Comey for his bad judgment and disregard for agency…

Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, Andrew Egger and Jim Swift discuss the latest in the debate over immigration policy and detained children and what to expect from the DOJ Inspector General memo as it pertains to the Mueller Investigation.

There was gnashing of teeth last week when it emerged that the Trump administration had seized the emails and phone records of New York Times national security reporter Ali Watkins in an investigation of former Senate Intelligence Committee aide James A. Wolfe. Wolfe had been leaking like a busted…

The Department of Justice plays defense.

Hosted by Charlie Sykes.

As House Republicans and Democrats battle over the release of a secret memo alleging surveillance abuses against the Trump campaign, Senate Republicans are not giving in to the prevailing heated rhetoric.

On May 23, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (WisDOJ) received a call from the state’s ethics board. An employee rummaging around in the basement of the building had found a filing cabinet full of material from the now-defunct “John Doe” investigations into the state’s Republican governor, Scott…

The three people involved in effecting the termination of FBI director James Comey last week were President Donald Trump and the two highest officers in the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Constitution vests in Trump the executive…

The firing of FBI director James Comey was a long time coming, to hear the insiders of the Trump administration tell it. But the final actions that put it in motion took place over the course of slightly more than 24 hours—light speed by government standards, and the hastiness and improvisation…

The three people involved in effecting the termination of FBI director James Comey last week were President Donald Trump and the two highest officers in the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The Constitution vests in Trump the executive…

The firing of FBI director James Comey was a long time coming, to hear the insiders of the Trump administration tell it. But the final actions that put it in motion took place over the course of slightly more than 24 hours—light speed by government standards, and the hastiness and improvisation…

Among the swirling parts of the controversy over President Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey, there's one that matters most. It stands in the way of the naming of a special prosecutor, the creation of a bipartisan, joint House-Senate committee to investigate the Trump-Russia connection, or…

Last Friday's document release by the FBI revealed a stark contradiction between then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's signed Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement and her July statements to FBI agents, as THE WEEKLY STANDARD reported. Clinton told the FBI that she could not recall…

Lobbying firms with ties to the campaigns of both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are being investigated by the Department of Justice for potential violations of foreign agent registration statutes and connections to corruption in Ukraine.

The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that while there is evidence Hillary Clinton and her State Department aides violated statutes with regard to her privately held email server, the Bureau will not be recommending the Department of Justice prosecute the former secretary of…

Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's top law enforcement officer, just issued the following memo. That this memo was deemed necessary inadvertantly reveals a great deal about the state of the Federal workforce:

Less than four months ago, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Department of Justice had concluded that the transgendered are among the classes of persons protected, unbeknownst to the framers of the legislation at the time, by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Tuesday's press…

Remember Michael Brown, the 18-year-old whose fatal shooting in Ferguson, Mo., last August triggered two waves of riots, a national protest movement, death threats against the officer who shot Brown, lamentations by college presidents regarding America’s enduring racial injustice, vilification of…

In April of this year, the Obama administration announced it would “reformulate” clemency guidelines for federal prison offenders. As the Washington Post described it, “Justice Department Prepares for Clemency Requests from Thousands of Inmates.” The paper claimed that this “unprecedented campaign…

When President Obama finally offers his executive action on illegal immigration, the Department of Justice's Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) is going to get a bit busier.

The Justice Department's Bureau of Prisons (BOP) recently committed $830,160 to purchase Protective Stab Vests for use by employees in federal prison facilities. The contract was awarded on a sole-source, no-bid basis because the need was determined to be of an "urgent and compelling nature."…

During his confirmation hearing in early 2009, Eric Holder declared he would not politicize the Justice Department. Yet throughout more than five years in office, the attorney general has done just that—without objection from President Obama, who obviously  paid no heed to Holder’s promise. Indeed,…

Attorney General Eric Holder appeared to choke up as he announced he'd be stepping down from his Cabinet position as soon as a replacement is confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Here's video:

The head of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration was called in to speak with Attorney General Eric Holder and told to get in line with the Obama administration's policy on lessening sentencing for drug offenders, according to a report from the Huffington Post.

In a speech the other day to state attorneys general, the U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, offered an ideal job description for himself and his state counterparts: “not merely to use our legal system to settle disputes and punish those who have done wrong, but to answer the kinds of fundamental…

Last month the Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The vote broke along party lines, 10-to-8. Over the weekend Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania became the first Democrat to oppose Adegbile. “I will not vote to…

Another reporter is joining the Obama administration. Emily Pierce, the deputy editor of Roll Call, will be joining the office of public affairs at the Department of Justice, the federal agency headed by Attorney General Eric Holder. 

In November, the Obama Justice Department dropped a lawsuit aimed at stopping a school voucher program in Louisiana. The Louisiana Scholarship Program is intended to give students in failing public schools a chance to attend better schools, including private ones. Justice tried to block the program…

Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is continuing his public campaign against the Obama adminstration and its lawsuit halting the state's public school voucher program. In a new ad airing on TV in Louisiana, Jindal criticizes the Department of Justice's suit, saying the federal government "wants to run…

Bobby Jindal is outraged over a Department of Justice lawsuit against a Louisiana school voucher program. The suit, which he (repeatedly) calls “cynical, immoral, and hypocritical” and the “worst misuse” of federal desegregation laws, aims to stop a program that allows poor students in failing…

It's a well-known fact that on most college campuses, supposedly havens of academic freedom, you really have to watch what you say.

Valerie Jarrett, a close adviser to President Obama, said that Eric Holder is "definitely" not stepping down and that he'll be attorney general "for quite a while."

White House spokesman Jay Carney refused to answer questions about the federal government monitoring the Associated Press's telephone records. Instead, Carney "referred questions" to officials in the Justice Department. 

Attorney General Eric Holder might not serve in President Barack Obama's second term.

Yesterday evening, it was announced that Attorney General Eric Holder appointed two prosecutors to investigate alleged national security leaks to the media from the White House. But now two leading Senate Republicans are urging President Obama to appoint independent "outside special counsel" to…

A new regulation from the Justice Department will require “public-access swimming pools across the country to install handicapped-accessible ramps and lifts or face a fine of up to $100,000,” the Hill reports. This regulation could cost “hotels and other organizations  . . . to spend up to $9,000…

When the White House announced last week that it would not comply with the requirements of the War Powers Resolution because the Libya operation does not involve "hostilities," eyebrows arched in curiosity. Many observers questioned the administration's conclusion that America's involvement in the…

Thirty-four Republican senators will send a letter to Barack Obama, calling on the president "to finally end the DOJ’s unwarranted investigations of CIA interrogators, whose work led to one of the most defining moments of the Global War on Terror."

The Wall Street Journal reports that the president "will nominate White House lawyer Donald Verrilli as solicitor general, filling a vacancy left by Elena Kagan when she became a Supreme Court justice last year, the White House said Monday." By picking Verrilli, the White House is passing over Neal…

James Cole, recess appointed this week by President Obama to serve as deputy attorney general, famously wrote an op-ed on September 9, 2002, criticizing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft. Cole argued:

“By prosecuting Ahmed Ghailani in federal court,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a May 21, 2009, statement, “we will ensure that he finally answers for his alleged role in the bombing of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya.” “This administration,” Holder continued, “is committed to keeping…

At Commentary, Jennifer Rubin writes, in a piece titled, "Washington Post Confirms More Than a Year of Conservative Reporting,"

From a Washington Times editorial: 

Jen Rubin first reported here and here on the existence of a letter written by former DOJ attorney and New Black Panther trial team leader Chris Coates to a Justice Department official documenting his concerns about unequal enforcement of voting rights laws. Now, Rubin tells us, the U.S. Civil…

A judge's reason for excluding damning testimony against al Qaeda terrorist Ahmed Ghailani makes no sense.

In the wake of former voting rights attorney Chris Coates’s bombshell testimony on September 24, the New Black Panther Party scandal has reached the front pages of some mainstream press outlets and taken on fresh momentum.

THE WEEKLY STANDARD has chronicled the Department of Justice’s voting rights scandal with the New Black Panther Party from the very beginning. (See Jennifer Rubin’s pieces here, here, here, and here.) Finally, it seems, the mainstream press is catching on, as the Washington Post ran a front-page…

Well, here we go. The head of the Justice Department's New Black Panther Party's trial team, Chris Coates, is breaking his silence and coming forward to tell his side of the story on Friday to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. The Obama Justice Department's stonewall, we suspect, will be in…