Department of Justice

Over halfway through Biden’s term, Attorney General Merrick Garland is maintaining the Trump Justice Department’s position on an alarming number of legal cases. Our litigation tracker documents approximately 40 such cases across education, immigration, the environment, criminal justice, transparency, agriculture and other issues. It is by no means a comprehensive list.

Attacks on aggressive antitrust enforcement from ‘fellow Democrats’ who work for monopolists should be seen for what they are.

Congressional Democrats managed to pass a few crucial measures during December’s lame duck session. One tiny fraction of the omnibus bill to fund the government was the Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act, a measure for which anti-monopoly advocates have long been pushing. And beyond the DOJ Antitrust and FTC’s edict to enforce competition, the FTC has another underfunded but crucial mission: consumer protection. 

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has a FOIA problem. It’s been a two year struggle for the Revolving Door Project to uncover the complete picture of Susan Davies and her employment with the DOJ, and we’ve hit yet another road block because apparently the Office of Legal Policy (OLP) does not maintain personnel records of its own employees. At least, not for Susan Davies. And apparently the Office of Information Policy’s FOIA office wasn’t aware of that.

In a Judiciary Committee hearing last Thursday, Chairman Dick Durbin (D-IL) seemed to assert that Casey T. Arrowood, President Biden’s initial pick for US Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, would not be renominated in the new session of Congress.

President Biden drew outrage and forceful opposition last fall after nominating Casey T. Arrowood to the position of United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee, based on Arrowood’s role in the baseless prosecution of a Chinese-Canadian professor under the Trump DOJ’s “China initiative.” Fortunately, with the new year and the convening of a new Congress, all pending nominees must be renominated, providing Biden another chance to do the right thing and drop Arrowood from consideration.

More than two years into Joe Biden’s presidency, Biden has nominated 67 people to the 93 offices that compose the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO). After one post-confirmation withdrawal  of Marisa Darden, 66 offices or 71 percent currently have nominees to the position; only 60 nominees or 64.5 percent have been fully confirmed to their office. 

Midway through Biden’s term, the Biden administration continues to advance Trump-era legal positions in court, according to an update released today to the Revolving Door Project’s long-running litigation tracker.

Housing experts have drafted an executive order to protect tenants and stop rent-gouging. All Biden has to do is sign it.

The news was flooded in September with images, reports, and increasingly abhorrent context for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ trafficking of migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard as a political stunt. DeSantis’ actions, and those of his aides, are of course potentially illegal, as was asserted by a Texas sheriff who opened a criminal investigation into the spectacle. This latest sadistic political posturing came at the cost of real people fleeing real persecution, but there is also a crucial piece of this awful puzzle that hasn’t been fully explored. Why did Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents, funded by federal dollars, allegedly forge documents for migrants knowing (even if the migrants themselves didn’t) that their flights were not destined for the locales DHS agents made their immigration proceedings beholden to?

“This lawsuit is simply about big business’ personal fear of and resentment toward Rohit Chopra.”

Chronic underfunding means that the agencies with the most laudable missions—the ones seeking to protect ordinary Americans from profit-driven exploitation—often struggle to go up against powerful corporate interests. Strengthening funding for enforcement to protect Americans from environmental, health, consumer, and labor standards violations is an existing, easily justifiable tool for changing that balance of power.