On August 26, Rep. Jamie Raskin, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent letters to the top federal prosecutors in five districts — the District of Columbia, Minnesota, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and the Northern District of Illinois — opening an inquiry into what he characterized as a pattern of Justice Department attorneys misleading …
In an August 18 filing in the Eastern District of North Carolina opposing James Comey’s vindictive-prosecution motion, federal prosecutors argued that presidential direction of subordinates exercising executive functions is “a feature, not a bug” of the constitutional system, and characterized the tradition of Justice Department independence from the White House as a historical “myth.” The …
In this NPR All Things Considered segment, host Sacha Pfeiffer interviews ProPublica reporter Aaron Davis about newly confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche’s appearance on Meet the Press, where Blanche declined to pledge that the Justice Department would operate independently of the White House and said no attorney general should make such a promise. Davis, coauthor …
A sweeping New York Times investigation published the weekend of August 2, and analyzed in the legal press, reconstructed how the elite law firm Paul, Weiss chose to strike a deal with the White House rather than litigate against an executive order targeting it — an order issued because the firm had employed attorneys involved …
A New York Times investigation by Michael S. Schmidt and Jessica Silver-Greenberg examines how Paul Weiss — a firm long identified with civil rights litigation and, during Trump’s first term, with organized legal opposition to the administration — came to settle rather than fight when it was hit with a punitive executive order in March …
Human Rights Watch warned that proceedings before Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal were failing to satisfy international fair-trial standards. The organization argued that inadequate procedural protections could permit the imprisonment of political opponents and undermine the credibility of accountability proceedings. Read it here.
Three senior congressional Democrats — Representative Jamie Raskin, Senator Richard Blumenthal, and Senator Adam Schiff — have written to Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom seeking documents about the arrangement the firm struck with the White House to avoid an executive order that could have severely damaged its business. Skadden pledged $100 million in free …
Federal agencies have pulled back sharply from civil rights enforcement after a Trump executive order directed them to deprioritize “disparate impact” cases — those targeting policies that appear neutral but disproportionately disadvantage protected groups. The legal standard dates to a 1971 Supreme Court test, was written into law by Congress in 1991, and was upheld …
In a 6-3 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a 91-year-old precedent (Humphrey’s Executor) that had barred presidents from firing members of independent federal agencies without cause. The ruling upheld President Trump’s 2025 dismissal of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, effectively turning FTC commissioners into at-will employees who serve at the president’s discretion. Writing …
On June 17, 2026, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on the 2025 Commission report on Türkiye that delivers one of its most forceful indictments to date of the Turkish judiciary’s role in dismantling the rule of law. The text condemns the harassment and prosecution of defense lawyers for their professional work, naming the continued …