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☆ Justice Department Defends Ending Pandemic Border Controls
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Jess Bravin | Michelle Hackman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—The Justice Department defended the planned termination of pandemic-era border controls inherited from the Trump administration, telling the Supreme Court Tuesday that public-health needs no longer justify excluding foreign nationals to prevent the spread of Covid-19. The Justice Department’s brief came a day after Chief Justice John Roberts issued an administrative order keeping the Trump-era policy, known as Title 42 for a provision of the federal Public Health Service Act, in place temporarily while Arizona and other Republican-led states challenge its termination.

Investigators from the Department of Justice reviewed numerous email exchanges between Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., Trump lawyer John Eastman and two DOJ officials who were pushing the then-president's plan to overturn the 2020 election results, newly unsealed court filings show. Earlier this year, federal investigators seized phones belonging to Perry and Eastman and also searched Clark's home. The Justice Department had asked Howell to unseal a pair of decisions from June and September, but some parts are still redacted. “He wanted Mr. Clark — Mr. Jeff Clark to take over the Department of Justice,” Hutchinson said. It's unclear why the Justice Department asked the judge to unseal the rulings now.

☆ Alabama inmate 'baked to death' in prison cell 'hotter than three hells,' federal lawsuit says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Marlene Lenthang | Julianne Mcshane | Marlene Lenthang Is A Breaking News Reporter For Nbc News Digital. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

An Alabama inmate died after being “baked” to death in a sweltering prison cell described as “hotter than three hells,” his family alleged in a federal wrongful death lawsuit. T Unit, the mental health ward where Rutledge was held, was not included in the project, according to the lawsuit. Alleged negligence by corrections officersThe suit said that inmates in the T Unit had complained of “excessive heat” all weekend prior to Rutledge’s death. The evening of Rutledge’s death, the heat in T Unit was over 100 degrees, the lawsuit said, and the blistering temperature was “obvious” to officers who conducted periodic checks. NBC News has reached out to the Alabama Department of Corrections and attorneys for each of the defendants for comment.

☆ DOJ touts first-of-its-kind settlement in racial discrimination case targeting ‘crime-free housing’ policy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Tierney Sneed | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —The US Justice Department on Wednesday filed what it is describing as a first-of-its-kind settlement in a racial discrimination case challenging a so-called “crime-free housing ordinance.”The proposed consent decree was filed Wednesday in a lawsuit the Justice Department brought in 2019 against the central California city of Hesperia, alleging that the city’s ordinance violated the Fair Housing Act’s prohibitions on racial discrimination in housing access. Hesperia continues to deny the allegations. She noted under the program, Black renters were almost four times more likely to be evicted than White renters and Latino renters were 29% more likely to be evicted. According to the Justice Department, Hesperia and its co-defendants – the county of San Bernardino and the San Bernardino Sheriffs Department – have agreed to pay a $950,000 settlement. It will compensate people who were harmed under the policy and will cover anti-discrimination training and other initiatives.

CNN —Special counsel Jack Smith has issued a subpoena to local officials in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, for information related to the 2020 election, a spokesperson for the county told CNN. “Yes, we received a subpoena from the Department of Justice’s special counsel regarding the 2020 election. The subpoena sent to Allegheny County is the latest in a string of requests for information sent by Smith, who is now overseeing the Justice Department’s sprawling criminal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Officials have also been subpoenaed in Georgia, New Mexico, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona and Wisconsin. Smith’s team has now sent subpoenas to local and state officials in all seven of the key states targeted by former President Donald Trump and his allies as part of their bid to upend Joe Biden’s legitimate victory.

☆ Man who allegedly threatened to kill Arizona election official facing federal charges
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Hannah Rabinowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

CNN —An Ohio man who allegedly threatened to kill an Arizona state election official during the 2022 midterm election season is now facing federal charges, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. Joshua Russell, 44, allegedly left voicemails for an unnamed election official who worked for the Arizona secretary of state’s office in the lead-up to the midterm elections, according to prosecutors. His arrest is the most recent case brought by the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which Attorney General Merrick Garland announced last year to address the rise in threats against election officials. Russell also allegedly left a message for the official after the election, saying: “We will not endure your crimes on America another day. Russell is charged with three counts of making a threatening interstate communication and three counts of making a threatening interstate telephone call.

CNN —Local officials in Nevada, New Mexico and Georgia have received federal subpoenas for records related to the 2020 election as the Justice Department’s investigation intensifies in battleground states. In addition, the Cobb County, Georgia, election board received an FBI subpoena this week, according to Ross Cavitt, the county’s communications director. In late December 2020, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced an audit found “no fraudulent absentee ballots” with a 99% confidence. CNN reported Monday that Smith had also subpoenaed Raffensperger as part of the Justice Department’s investigation. Clark County, Nevada’s most populous county, and Arizona’s secretary of state’s office also refuted claims of voter fraud after the 2020 election.

CNN —Special counsel Jack Smith has subpoenaed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as part of the Justice Department’s investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election and the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021. Mike Hassinger, public information officer with the Georgia secretary of state’s office, confirmed that Raffensperger’s office has received a subpoena from Smith. “At the request of the Justice Department, we have no further comment,” Hassinger said in an email to CNN. Smith has also issued a flurry of subpoenas, including to election officials in battleground states where Trump tried to overturn his loss in 2020. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you’ve recalculated,” Trump said in one part of the call.

CNN —The special master review of evidence seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate is no more. Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday formally dismissed the case, which Trump brought to challenge the Mar-a-Lago evidence collection and in which she appointed special master Raymond Dearie, another judge, to make recommendations on whether prosecutors could access evidence. The dismissal of the case now gives the Justice Department full access to tens of thousands of records and other items found among documents marked as classified in Trump’s beach club and private office. The court told Cannon the case must be dismissed and there will be no further proceedings before Cannon in the Southern District of Florida. That critique culminated in a scathing opinion from an appellate court panel – stacked with GOP appointees – that tore apart Trump and Cannon’s rationale for why the special master was necessary.

Smith takes over a staff that’s already nearly twice the size of Robert Mueller’s team of lawyers who worked on the Russia probe. Smith will also take on national security investigators already working the probe into the potential mishandling of federal records taken to Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. Those lawyers maintain the former president is unlikely to be indicted, according to two sources familiar. Special Counsel Robert Mueller makes a statement about the Russia investigation on May 29, 2019 at the Justice Department in Washington, DC. Trump allies have consistently maintained that nothing Trump did related to the election and January 6 itself amounts to a crime.

☆ Closed-door contempt hearing related to Trump ends with no outcome publicly announced
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Katelyn Polantz Casey Gannon Hannah Rabinowitz Lauren Koenig Kristen Holmes | Katelyn Polantz | Casey Gannon | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington CNN —A federal judge declined to hold former President Donald Trump in contempt of court in a closed-door hearing on Friday, two sources familiar with the matter told CNN. The sources also told CNN that Chief Judge Beryl Howell instead pressed the Trump team and the Justice Department to work together to find a mutually agreeable resolution. The contempt proceedings for Trump ended after almost 90 minutes behind closed doors on Friday afternoon at a Washington, DC, courthouse. The Justice Department declined to comment. But the Justice Department is still unsatisfied with the search and with Trump’s side not asserting all documents have been turned over, CNN previously reported.

The appeals court had given Trump until Thursday to appeal to the full 11th Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court and try to get a stay before the order took effect. After the FBI executed its Mar-a-Lago search warrant, a top Trump adviser familiar with his legal strategy told NBC News that the former president would probably “appeal everything to the Supreme Court. It also barred the special master from reviewing those documents, a decision that Trump appealed to the Supreme Court in October and lost. Under federal law, official White House papers are federal property and must be handed over to the National Archives when a president leaves office. The most recent defeat came last month, when the court allowed Trump's tax returns to be disclosed to a Democratic-led House committee.

☆ Whitey Bulger Killed After Inmates Were Tipped Off on His Prison Transfer, Watchdog Says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Sadie Gurman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

WASHINGTON—Inmates at a West Virginia federal prison knew well in advance that convicted Boston mobster James “Whitey” Bulger was being transferred there and placed bets on how long it would be before the notorious FBI informant was killed, the Justice Department’s inspector general wrote in a withering report released Wednesday. Bulger, 89 and in failing health, was bludgeoned to death with a padlock less than 12 hours after arriving at the U.S. Penitentiary Hazelton in October 2018, the violent capstone to his own murderous career and to what the watchdog’s report described as a series of management failures, flawed policies and bureaucratic ineptitude.

☆ F.B.I. asking about videos and racist website in connection with Colorado shooting
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Jo Yurcaba | Jo Yurcaba Is A Reporter For Nbc Out. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

The former neighbor, Xavier Kraus, said an FBI agent asked him about the two websites at an FBI field office in Colorado Springs last Thursday afternoon after an agent called him earlier that day. The website allegedly created by Aldrich is a forum-type “free speech” site where people have anonymously posted racist and antisemitic memes, language and videos. The videos appear to have gone up from 9:28 p.m. to 11:43 p.m. local time on the night of the shooting. Kraus said the agents asked whether Aldrich posted the “Wrong Targets” video on the homepage. After listening to the voice in the videos, Kraus said it “sounds very, very similar” to Aldrich, but he could not confirm this with certainty.

☆ Feds cite rarely used law to charge 12 with violent scheme to 'monopolize' business at U.S.-Mexico border
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Julia-Ainsley-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Julia Ainsley | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

The Justice Department invoked a rarely used, 132-year-old law on Tuesday to charge 12 people with running a violent and sometimes deadly scheme to “monopolize” the resale of American cars and other goods in Central America by fixing prices and retaliating against those who refused to be extorted. The Justice Department charged the group under the Sherman Act of 1890, an antitrust regulation used to break up American monopolies Standard Oil in the 1920s and AT&T in the 1970s. Those who challenged the group were met with threats, kidnappings and even death, the indictment said. The defendants’ addresses in the indictment range from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to just across the border in Matamoros, Mexico. The indictment said the group met at the Holiday Inn in Harlingen, Texas, in March 2019 to divide $44,000 in cash.

☆ Public-Corruption Charges Dismissed Against Former New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-05 | by ( James Fanelli | Corinne Ramey | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

A federal judge Monday tossed the bulk of a public-corruption case against former New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin , finding the Justice Department’s charges didn’t meet the legal bar for prosecuting alleged bribery involving campaign contributions. U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken in Manhattan threw out three corruption charges against Mr. Benjamin, a Democrat who was indicted earlier this year on five criminal counts for allegedly soliciting campaign donations from a real-estate developer in exchange for steering $50,000 in state funds to the developer’s education nonprofit in Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood.

☆ Mississippi man who burned cross to intimidate Black neighbors pleads guilty to hate crime
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( Minyvonne Burke | Minyvonne Burke Is A Senior Breaking News Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

A Mississippi man pleaded guilty to a federal hate crime after he burned a cross in his front yard to intimidate his Black neighbors. Cross-burning was used in the Jim Crow era by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups as a form of racial intimidation of Black people. "Cox admitted that he burned the cross because of the victims’ race and because they were occupying a home next to his," the release stated. "Burning a cross invokes the long and painful history, particularly in Mississippi, of intimidation and impending physical violence against Black people," said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. "The Department of Justice will continue to prosecute those who use racially-motivated violence to drive people away from their homes or communities."

☆ Nebraska man gets prison for leaving noose for coworker
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-03 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +1 min

— A former employee at the Oriental Trading Co. has been sentenced to prison for leaving a noose on a floor scrubber that a Black colleague was set to use. The Nebraska U.S. Attorney’s office said Bruce Quinn, 66, was sentenced Friday to four months in prison and one year of supervised release for leaving the noose for his coworker to find. He pleaded guilty in September to a federal civil rights violation. Prosecutors said a 63-year-old Black man who worked for Oriental Trading found the noose made out of orange twine sitting on the seat of the equipment in June 2020. “Federal courts have long recognized the noose as one of the most vile symbols in American history,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.

But Wray said the FBI continues to be concerned about Chinese government “talent programs” that sometimes pay American professors through secret relationships. “At the same time, you also stated, as you’ve just done, that this effort isn’t about the Chinese people or Chinese Americans. But of course, Chinese Americans are part of the U.S. society that you believe needs to be mobilized against China. He also returned to talking about Chinese government operations that have targeted Chinese Americans. “We view Chinese Americans here as being with us.

☆ In major setback for Trump, appeals court ends special master's review of seized Mar-a-Lago records
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Zoë Richards | Daniel Barnes | Zoë Richards Is The Evening Politics Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

A federal appeals court Thursday ruled that a judge’s order appointing a special master to review documents seized from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort should be dismissed. "Accordingly, we agree with the government that the district court improperly exercised equitable jurisdiction, and that dismissal of the entire proceeding is required." In a separate order, the panel said its order will take effect in seven days, barring any intervention by the Supreme Court. Trump could appeal Thursday's ruling and request that the appeals court order be put on hold. Two of the three judges on the appeals court panel -- Britt Grant and Andrew Brasher -- were appointed by Trump.

☆ Appeals Court Halts Special-Master Review of Trump Mar-a-Lago Documents
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Jan Wolfe | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

An image from a court filing by the Justice Department showing documents seized during the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. WASHINGTON—An appeals court has ordered an end to the “special master” process for reviewing documents seized from former President Donald Trump‘s Mar-a-Lago residence, delivering a major boost to the Justice Department’s continuing criminal investigation. In a 3-0 decision issued on Thursday, a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta said Mr. Trump’s objections to the search should have been promptly dismissed on jurisdictional grounds.

☆ More Cases, Policy Changes Are on the Horizon, DOJ’s New Fraud Section Chief Says
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( Dylan Tokar | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +4 min

The fraud section has at least two bribery-related settlements with corporations that it plans to finalize in the coming weeks, Mr. Leon said. Justice Department settlements typically require companies to undertake compliance reforms over a set period of time. A company’s chief executive and chief compliance officer will be required to sign at the end of that period the certification document, stating that the company’s compliance program is “reasonably designed to prevent and detect” future violations. A veteran of the fraud section, Mr. Leon previously served as a supervisor in its securities fraud unit beginning in 2011 and then briefly as its deputy chief before departing in early 2014. More policy changes are on the horizon, Mr. Leon said, including an update to the fraud section’s FCPA corporate enforcement policy.

☆ Feds want a manager to oversee the troubled water system in Jackson, Mississippi
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-29 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

— The federal government filed a proposal Tuesday to appoint a manager for the troubled water system in Mississippi’s capital city, which nearly collapsed in late summer and continues to struggle. The goal is to achieve long-term sustainability of the system and the city’s compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act and other laws. According to the agreement, that litigation will be put on hold for six months while all parties try to improve the water system. Edward “Ted” Henifin was appointed as interim third-party manager of the Jackson water system and Water Sewer Business Administration, the city’s water billing department. While there is much more work ahead, the Justice Department’s action marks a critical moment on the path to securing clean, safe water for Jackson residents.″Jackson has had water problems for decades.

“In terms of thinking about what the mid- and long-term goals should be…the task force has been focused on facilitation networks, procurement networks, money-laundering networks,” he said. Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | Risk and Compliance Journal Our Morning Risk Report features insights and news on governance, risk and compliance. Mr. Bonham-Carter worked primarily as a property manager for the Russian oligarch, according to the indictment. Bonham-Carter is a U.K. citizen, living in the U.K., arrested in the U.K.,” Mr. Adams said. In some cases, OFAC may not add companies that prosecutors deem are subject to the control of sanctioned oligarchs, he said.

☆ Utah man charged after razor blade held to another passenger's throat on flight
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Dennis-Romero-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Dennis Romero | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

A Utah man accused of holding a straight-edge razor near another passenger's throat on a New York City-to-Salt Lake City flight has been charged with assault, authorities said. He was charged Tuesday with assault with a dangerous weapon on or near aircraft and carrying a weapon on a flight, prosecutors with the U.S. Justice Department’s District of Utah office said. Officials say he boarded a flight at John F. Kennedy International Airport with a concealed straight-edge razor marketed to barbers. The woman said he held the razor near her throat as he told her to pause the movie, according to prosecutors. "He was going to get help because he knew something was really off," the woman told NBC affiliate KSL, who withheld her name.

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