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u.s. department of justice
DOJ Slammed for Ending Efforts to Tackle Racist Policing
One critic called the move "an unprecedented abandonment of the Department of Justice's responsibility to enforce civil rights laws and protect communities from unlawful police abuse."
May 22, 2025
Racial justice advocates decried Wednesday's announcement by the U.S. Department of Justice that it will end law enforcement reform and accountability efforts, including the Biden administration's agreements with the cities of Minneapolis and Louisville—a move that came just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder by a Minneapolis cop.
The Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division said it is dropping lawsuits against the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments and ending pending consent decrees—court-enforceable agreements under which law enforcement agencies commit to reform—with the two cities. The deals, which have been submitted to judges for approval, have been held up in federal court as the Trump administration has sought to block their implementation.
The Civil Rights Division said it "will also be closing its investigations into, and retracting the Biden administration's findings of constitutional violations on the part of," the Louisiana State Police and police departments in Phoenix; Memphis; Oklahoma City; Trenton, New Jersey; and Mount Vernon, New York.
To “disappear” DOJ findings like this is the most disturbing and disgraceful part. A key advantage of DOJ pattern & practice investigations is that DOJ has the resources to absorb the cost of generating the findings that indiv civ rights groups suing police depts find onerous & often prohibitive.
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— Sherrilyn Ifill ( @sifill.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 8:02 AM
Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who represents the families of George Floyd—murdered by then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020—and Breoanna Taylor, who was killed earlier that year by Louisville police, called the DOJ announcement a "slap in the face."
"Just days before the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's murder—a moment that galvanized a global movement for justice—the U.S. Department of Justice has chosen to turn its back on the very communities it pledged to protect," Crump said in a statement Wednesday.
"By walking away from consent decrees in Minneapolis and Louisville, and closing its investigation into the Memphis Police Department while retracting findings of serious constitutional violations, the DOJ is not just rolling back reform, it is attempting to erase truth and contradicting the very principles for which justice stands," he asserted.
"These consent decrees and investigations were not symbolic gestures, they were lifelines for communities crying out for change, rooted in years of organizing, suffering, and advocacy," Crump continued, adding that the DOJ's moves "will only deepen the divide between law enforcement and the people they are sworn to protect and serve."
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) lamented the DOJ move and accused the Trump administration of acting "like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd's lives didn't mean a damn thing."
Democratic Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said his city would proceed with reforms despite the DOJ's announcement, while questioning the move's timing.
"The Trump administration is a mess. It is predictable that they would move for a dismissal the very same week that George Floyd was murdered five years ago," he said. "What this shows is that all [President] Donald Trump really cares about is political theater."
The DOJ claimed the Biden administration falsely accused the Minneapolis and Louisville police departments of "widespread patterns of unconstitutional policing practices by wrongly equating statistical disparities with intentional discrimination and heavily relying on flawed methodologies and incomplete data."
"These sweeping consent decrees would have imposed years of micromanagement of local police departments by federal courts and expensive independent monitors, and potentially hundreds of millions of dollars of compliance costs, without a legally or factually adequate basis for doing so," the agency argued.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon—the conspiracy theorist who heads the Civil Rights Division despite, or perhaps because of, her troubled history of working against voting, reproductive, LGBTQ+, and other civil rights—said in a statement Wednesday that her agency is ending the Biden administration's "failed experiment of handcuffing local leaders and police departments with factually unjustified consent decrees."
"Overbroad police consent decrees divest local control of policing from communities where it belongs, turning that power over to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats, often with an anti-police agenda," Dhillon added.
"DOJ's actions today amount to a public declaration that law enforcement agencies are above the law."
Legal Defense Fund director of strategic initiatives Jin Hee Lee called the DOJ announcement "an unprecedented abandonment of the Department of Justice's responsibility to enforce civil rights laws and protect communities from unlawful police abuse."
Lee said the DOJ investigations that led to the consent decrees "revealed a litany of systemic harms to community members, whom officers are sworn to protect—from wanton violence and sexual misconduct to unlawful stops, searches, and arrests, and racially discriminatory policing."
"By abandoning its obligation to pursue legal remedies that would stem this unlawful conduct, DOJ necessarily condones it," Lee added. "DOJ's actions today amount to a public declaration that law enforcement agencies are above the law."
NAACP president Derrick Johnson said on social media, "It's no surprise that Trump's Department of Coverups and Vengeance isn't seeking justice."
"It's been five years, and police reform legislation still hasn't passed in Congress, and police departments still haven't been held accountable," Johnson added, referring to Floyd's murder. "Five years."
Furthermore, speculation is growing over the prospect of Trump pardoning Chauvin. Addressing the possibility, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walzsaid earlier this week that "if Chauvin's federal conviction is pardoned, he will still have to serve the remainder of his 22-and-a-half-year state prison sentence for murder and manslaughter."
Opponents vowed to fight the Trump administration's civil rights pushback.
"Let me be clear: We will not give up," Crump said. "This movement will not be swayed or deterred by fickle politics. It is anchored in the irrefutable truth that Black lives matter, and that justice should not depend on who is in power."
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Judge Boasberg Demands to Know If Trump Can Really Bring Abrego Garcia Home With a Phone Call
The judge questioned administration attorneys in a hearing on whether the White House has "constructive custody" of nearly 140 Venezuelan men it sent to El Salvador.
May 08, 2025
At a hearing Wednesday on the status of nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants whom the Trump administration hastily expelled to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a federal judge told lawyers representing the detainees that there were "a lot of facts in their favor" regarding whether the White House has the authority to return the men to the United States.
During the hearing, Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., questioned U.S. Department of Justice lawyers to determine whether the U.S. has "constructive custody" of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a Maryland man whom the administration has insisted it can't bring back to the country even though he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador—and other prisoners at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).
If the White House does have constructive custody of the men, with El Salvador detaining them at the behest of the U.S. government, it would be possible to bring them back to the U.S. to receive due process—which DOJ lawyer Abishek Kambli reluctantly conceded they had not received before their expulsion.
Boasberg zeroed in on a comment President Donald Trump made in an ABC News interview last week about Abrego Garcia, when he told reporter Terry Moran that he "could" make a phone call to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to secure the Maryland father's return.
"You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, 'Send him back,'" said Moran.
"And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that," Trump said.
On Wednesday Boasberg demanded to know if Trump's comments were accurate.
"Is the president not telling the truth, or could he secure the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia?" he asked.
"A country in which Trump can do whatever he wants to these people, say whatever he wants about what he did, but be protected from what he said in a case about what he did, is not the democratic country we have known or that we deserve."
Kambli replied that Trump was just speaking of "the influence that he has" but doubled down on the claim that the president's position of power doesn't equal legal control of constructive custody.
The White House has claimed it has no jurisdiction over the migrants even though they were sent to El Salvador under a $6 million deal Trump struck with Bukele.
Boasberg pointed to comments by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a visit to CECOT in which she suggested the U.S. is in control of who is sent to and remains at the prison.
"What about Secretary Noem saying CECOT is 'one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people,'" Boasberg asked Kambli, quoting Noem directly. "Is she wrong about that?"
Kambli attempted to deflect the suggestion that the U.S. is paying El Salvador directly to house migrants, saying that despite Noem's remarks, the administration has only paid "grants" to Bukele's government "for law enforcement and anti-crime purposes."
Boasberg also asked point-blank: "Is the United States paying the government of El Salvador to detain the migrants?"
Kambli did not reply directly, saying only that "there is no agreement or arrangement whereby the United States maintains any agency or control over these prisoners."
At another point the judge forced Kambli to admit that—contrary to repeated claims by Trump—the U.S. Supreme Court did not rule in his favor regarding his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, which the White House has used to expel people it accuses of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
The Supreme Court lifted a block imposed by Boasberg in an earlier ruling on the Alien Enemies Act, but did not uphold Trump's invocation of the rarely-used law.
"I know your client believes the Supreme Court upheld the invocation of the AEA," Boasberg told Kambli. "You agree the Supreme Court never did that, correct?"
Law & Crimereported that "almost audible squirming ensued" as Kambli gave "several evasive answers" before Boasberg read the Supreme Court ruling verbatim.
"They did not analyze that precise issue," Kambli finally admitted.
Former congressman Conor Lamb suggested Boasberg's harsh questioning of the Trump administration is what is needed in the judicial system as the president continues his mass deportation operation and threatens due process rights.
"A country in which Trump can do whatever he wants to these people, say whatever he wants about what he did, but be protected from what he said in a case about what he did, is not the democratic country we have known or that we deserve," said Lamb. "Judges, we need you now."
Law & Crime reported that Boasberg "signaled an obvious inclination toward finding the U.S. does have constructive custody over the relevant Venezuelan nationals detained in CECOT" before ordering the Trump administration to provide sworn declarations regarding who has official custody.
The judge ordered the organizations representing the plaintiffs, the ACLU and Democracy Forward, to decide by Monday whether to request new documents and depositions from the government in the ongoing case.
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Trump's 'Phony Energy Emergency' Used by DOJ to Target State Climate Laws
"There is no energy emergency, and Trump's stated reasoning for it is as much a scam as every other pathetic con and hustle this president attempts," said one consumer campaigner.
May 02, 2025
Defenders of climate and the rule of law blasted the Trump administration on Friday for using what one consumer campaigner called a "phony" emergency to wage lawfare against states trying to hold Big Oil financially accountable for the planetary crisis.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed complaints against New York and Vermont over their climate superfund laws, which empower states to seek financial compensation from fossil fuel companies to help cover the costs of climate mitigation. The burning of fossil fuels is the main driver of human-caused global heating.
Separately, the DOJ also sued Hawaii and Michigan "to prevent each state from suing fossil fuel companies in state court to seek damages for alleged climate change harms."
"The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing."
Hours later, Hawaii became the 10th state to sue Big Oil for lying about the climate damage caused by fossil fuels. The Aloha State's lawsuit targets ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, and other corporations for their "decadeslong campaign of deception to discredit the scientific consensus on climate change" and sow public doubt about the existence and main cause of the crisis.
"The federal lawsuit filed by the Justice Department attempts to block Hawaii from holding the fossil fuel industry responsible for deceptive conduct that caused climate change damage," Hawaii Attorney General Anne E. Lopez said. "The use of the United States Department of Justice to fight on behalf of the fossil fuel industry is deeply disturbing and is a direct attack on Hawaii's rights as a sovereign state."
The DOJ on Thursday cited President Donald Trump's April 8 executive order, " Protecting American Energy From State Overreach," which affirms the president's commitment "to unleashing American energy, especially through the removal of all illegitimate impediments to the identification, development, siting, production, investment in, or use of domestic energy resources—particularly oil, natural gas, coal, hydropower, geothermal, biofuel, critical mineral, and nuclear energy resources."
Trump also signed a day-one edict declaring a "national energy emergency" in service of his campaign pledge to "drill, baby, drill" for climate-heating fossil fuels. The "emergency" has been invoked to fast-track fossil fuel permits, including for extraction projects on public lands.
Acting Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of the DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division said in a statement Thursday, "When states seek to regulate energy beyond their constitutional or statutory authority, they harm the country's ability to produce energy and they aid our adversaries."
"The department's filings seek to protect Americans from unlawful state overreach that would threaten energy independence critical to the well-being and security of all Americans," Gustafson added.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen, on Friday accused the Trump administration of "using a phony energy emergency declaration to illegally attack state climate and clean energy laws."
"There is no energy emergency, and Trump's stated reasoning for it is as much a scam as every other pathetic con and hustle this president attempts," Weissman continued. "Fake constitutional claims based on a fake emergency cannot and will not displace sensible and long overdue state efforts to hold dirty energy corporations accountable."
"These corporations have imposed massive costs on society through their deceptive denial of the realities of climate change, and through rushing us toward climate catastrophe," he added. "It's good policy, common sense, and completely within state authority, for states to hold these corporations accountable."
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